Media Transcription and Captioning Contract Vendor Comparison (UW–Madison)

Side-by-side comparison of several features offered by both University of Wisconsin Contract Vendors for media transcription and captioning services.

Please review the vendor contract details prior to visiting the websites or contacting either vendor.

Both vendors have agreed to conduct webinars or training sessions in areas that would benefit you, your Department, or Campus. Please contact the vendor directly with your questions or requests for training.

Categories	Criteria	3Play Media Ph: (617) 764-5189 email: info@3playmedia.com See UW-Madison Contract rates	CaptionSync (formerly Automatic Sync Technologies) Ph: (877) 278-7962 email: info@automaticsync.com See UW-Madison Contract rates
Price and Terms	Price - Transcription + Captioning	$1.95/min - 10 day turnaround $2.10/min - 4 day turnaround $2.60/min - 2 day turnaround $3.10/min - 1 day turnaround $4.10/mi - Same day, 8 hour turnaround $7.10/min - 2 hour turnaround * See difficulty surcharge	$2.19/min - 4 day turnaround $2.39/min - 3 day turnaround $2.89/min - 1 day turnaround $3.59/min - Same day, 8 hour turnaround
	Price - Transcription only	$1.95/min - 10 day turnaround $2.10/min - 4 day turnaround $2.60/min - 2 day turnaround $3.10/min - 1 day turnaround $4.10/min - Same day turnaround $7.10/min - 2 hour turnaround * See difficulty surcharge	$1.45/min - 4 day turnaround $1.50/min - 3 day turnaround $2.00/min - 1 day turnaround $2.60/min - 8 hour turnaround
	Price - Captioning only (transcript provided)	$0.90/min* (No additional cost for RUSH)	$0.99/min
	Caption encoding	$10/file	N/A
	Results review service	N/A	$0.50/min
	Caption import	$5/file	$1.00/min
	Price proration	Nearest second Vendor offers other turnaround options not listed here. See contract for details.	One minute billing resolution. Vendor offers other turnaround options not listed here. See contract for details.
	Audio difficulty surcharge	Additional $1.00/min	N/A
Experience		Founded on MIT technology out of the Spoken Language Systems Group Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Services are provided for MIT, Yale, Princeton, and numerous other universities	Founded in 1998 - over a decade of experience; Funded by the US Department of Education.Almost 2000 users, mainly in education; 6 years working with University of Wisconsin
Process Quality	Transcription process	3 rounds of review. Trained transcriptionists review/edit every second and every word.	Transcripts are created by professional stenographers, no speech recognition is used in process Additional Result Review Service can be purchased at $0.50/min.
	Transcription accuracy rate	Goal is 99% or better accuracy rate	Goal is 99% or better accuracy rate
	Time synchronization	Word to word (millisecond accuracy). All synchronization is done and reviewed by trained transcriptionists.	Word to word (millisecond accuracy)
	All work done in the US	100%	100%
	All work done in-house (not outsourced)	100%	100%
	Uses automated speech recognition	Used in one part of our 3-step process to improve the accuracy of synchronization and to aid the transcription and quality assurance processes.	No; professional, trained stenographers create all transcripts
Account System	Transcript editing	Real-time self-service transcript editing. Changes instantly propagate to all transcript and caption files	Unlimited free redos capability allows user to alter caption results, add output types, and/or change caption formatting
	Transcript storage on account system	Transcripts and outputs are kept indefinitely	Transcripts and outputs are kept indefinitely
	Web-based account system	Yes	Yes
	Secure file transfer capability	Yes	Yes
	Drag and drop client app for Windows and Mac	Not at this time	Yes
Additional Features	Interactive Tools	3Play Media's interactive tools are included with any purchased transcript at no additional charge. Interactive transcript - highlights individual words as they are spoken; click on any word to jump to specific point in video; search for words in transcript. Can be embedded on any website or LMS by inserting a snippet of code. Interactive transcript demo YouTube One-Line Embed - Easy solution to add captions (or a searchable interactive transcript) to any YouTube video, even if you don't own it. YouTube One-Line Embed demo	AST offers a variety of tools and support for interactive transcripts, video search functionality, and video clipping. AST does not charge extra for these outputs. Contact CaptionSync (formerly Automatic Sync Technologies) to discuss in more detail.
	Caption format support	Youtube, iTunes/iPods/iPhone/iPad (captions and subtitles), QuickTime, Real, Mediasite, Echo360, Accordent, Panopto, Tegrity, Windows Media, JW FlowPlayer, Captionate, DVD (captions and subtitles), Kaltura, Brightcove, Ooyala, Flash	Youtube, iTunes/iPods/iPhone/iPad (captions and subtitles), QuickTime, Real, Mediasite, Echo360, Accordent, Panopto, eTeach, Windows Media, JW FlowPlayer, Captionate, DVD (captions and subtitles), Kaltura, Brightcove, Ooyala, Flash, MacCaption, and many more
	Directly integrated into the following lecture capture packages	Amara, Brightcove, Cattura, DigitalChalk, Echo360, Echo360 ALP, Ensemble Video, Facebook, Kaltura KMC, Kaltura MediaSpace, Limelight, Liveclicker, MediaAMP, MediaCore, MediaPlatform, Mediasite, Ooyala, Panopto, Tegrity, thePlatform, Vidcaster, Viddler, Vimeo, Viocorp, VoiceThread, Warpwire, Wistia, YouTube, and YuJa.	Mediasite, Echo360, Panopto, Podcast Producer (others coming soon).
	Language Support	English and Spanish files captioned Translation for hundreds of languages From $10/min Price varies by language and service level.	English and Spanish files captioned Translation: Available on request. Price varies by language and service level.
	Additional Services available	Audio description	Digital NLE Caption DVD Authoring service Copy Edit Service

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