Descript Transcriptions on the Mac

Hello. Welcome to Daily(ish) for Monday, April 23. It is, beautiful six degrees out, but it actually feels like one. So it's barely above, freezing. So it's a little chilly, but it's, it's nice to not be in the negatives.

But this is not a weather podcast, but the I will I will note that the snow is almost all gone. So if you're keeping score out there wherever you are in the world and you've never had snow, we are almost almost out of the snow. It's not that there's that much around, but you can still see it on by the riverbank and stuff like that. So happy Monday wherever you are in the world. Hope it, is a good good day, good good morning, good afternoon whenever you happen to listen to this.

Maybe it's Tuesday and you're confused why I'm talking about Monday. I apologize. That's how time shifted audio works, I guess. I published the video on the YouTube channel that I was mentioning last episodes, about its demo and and sort of walkthrough of using an app called Descript that allows you to transcribe audio from, like, a podcast or a video, maybe the the audio from a video that you're doing, and then have a transcription of that that you put on, say, the website for the podcast or, wherever. I've done a like I said, I did a video on it previously a while ago, and they've added some new stuff where they support multitrack.

So multiple guests on a podcast, let's say, and each track is is then entered into Descript, and it transcribes each of them individually so that you can have the various voices, the various speakers very clearly marked on the transcription and away you go.

What's neat about this app

is that it's all done, automagically for you and without not even a human doing it. It's a computer transcription, And then you can use the app kinda like how, you might see like court reporters or people who do actual transcribing of spoken word. There's an the app itself makes it really easy to go through and edit the transcription while you're listening to the audio. And so then you can fix any little errors and things like that because it's it is about 90 there where you could just basically run it through Descript and then publish it and you'd be happy and good to go. But it's a good idea just to read it through quickly because there is the odd time it completely messes up either with hilarious results or with, potentially damaging results, I guess, it said said you said something really offensive somehow or thought you said something really offensive in your audio and then transcribed that and you just threw it up on your web page and then all of a sudden people come across that, don't actually listen to the audio and just read it and think that you said, all baby seals must die or something like that, then that might be an issue.

So yeah. Anyways, it's worth looking through, checking over, but you can basically do it pretty quickly and, depending on how long the podcast is obviously. And so there's benefits obviously for on the web in terms of search engine optimization and having people be able to search for the stuff in your podcast because it's there, much easier for Google and Bing and other search engines to crawl and and read, but also, perhaps more importantly for accessibility for people who cannot hear but who would love to know what's going on inside your podcast. This way they can have a transcription of it to read and and follow along and be kept informed of what's what's going on in the podcast. And the main issue or the main thing that's held people back from doing this for a long time is just the cost.

It's it obviously costs either time or money or both to transcribe by hand every podcast that's ever been produced. And, there's always been the hope that, you know, the cloud or AI or whatever, machine learning would catch up and be able to take care of that for us in a way. And that's kinda what this is where the first level of the sort of cheap free version of it, depending how much time you need per month is, is basically machine learning and and all automatically run through a, the cloud, a computer basically transcribing it for you. And then if you want to, you can pay them more to do the sort of they call it their white glove service where they'll actually someone will listen and correct the transcription for you and send it back to you so that you can publish it or do whatever you want with it. So either way, it's kinda cool.

There's there's been other services like that. Obviously, there's lots of services on the web, but where you can outsource that and hire somebody to do this transcription for you. But this is kinda combining the best of both worlds worlds where you get the transcription, you know, a quick version that maybe is good enough. And then if you want to, you can offload it to someone, a human, to actually do the final touches on it before it goes out into the world.

This wasn't supposed to be

an episode entirely promoting Descript, but just talking about the video, obviously, kind of want to explain a little bit more. And also just the just like having I've been intentionally scheduling daily ish. I have one, like I said, in a previous episode today, like, on Mondays at 9AM, Wednesdays around lunchtime, and Fridays a little later in the afternoon just to see how forcing myself to record at different times of the day what comes up, what is which one is easier, when is it harder. And, I'm finding these the first one, though, at least first thing in the morning on Monday is probably, like, the hardest time because I haven't had really much time to think about it or prep or build up into an idea or anything like that. And so, but again, good challenge, good way to push myself, and help sort of try different things.

The weird thought I woke up with this morning was and and then this is like a reoccurring kind of feeling of like and maybe wherever you are in life, I I remember feeling this when I was in my twenties and thirties and various times and various, you know, when things are happening in life is kinda like waiting for you're like waiting for the the adults to show up. And even though obviously as as a parent, as a homeowner, as someone who's had jobs and has a vehicle or whatever, I don't know, like, I'm probably I'm I'm in the very definition of adulthood, I think, by, at least our society's standards of what would classify someone as an adult. And, but yet still I find myself thinking, like, someday, someday, somebody's gonna come along and be like, no. Actually, this is how you should be doing life. This is how you should be parenting.

This is how you should this is actually what you're supposed to be doing for your job or your business. This is what how it should work. You know, good job trying. You made a a one for effort, but a one, a plus, I think is how you should say it. I guess the adult will tell me.

But, and yeah. Not like a consciously sitting there thinking like, oh, I can't wait until someone is gonna come fix this, but somehow, like, dealing with mortgages and winter tires and, I don't know. Maybe there's something in either my there's an aspect to it that's like a cop out of like, this is why you're not whatever, you know, achieving x y or z or able to do this thing in your in your life, and so because someone else needs to come and do it for you or something like that, some sort of parent issues that I have, obviously. But it's not like a conscious thing where I'm like, I sit there and I'm about to whatever, go fix our tire that has a nail in it and think, I'm just gonna sit here and wait for an adult to come along and tell me how to take care of this. Obviously, I know how to take care of either I don't know how to fix the tire myself, but I know how to go to a tire shop and get it taken care of or whatever.

But there's kinda like this buildup of stress about a whole bunch of weird adult things that I'm somehow my part of my brain thinks that's you're not ready to take care of those kinds of things yet or something like that and convinces me that I should be, I don't know what. I guess sitting around playing video games all day is is but that part of my brain is trying to like drag me down into or something like that and put off the responsibilities of today for tomorrow and and be a lazy butthead, I guess. So in an effort to not be a lazy butthead, I'm gonna stop recording this podcast and get to work. So wherever you are, hope you have a great day. Hope you are not sitting around waiting for an adult to come along like I do sometimes.

And if you do, that's okay. Just tell yourself that you are an adult. Look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself of that you're an adult. You can handle this. You can take care of it.

You got this, and I will talk to you again on Wednesday. Thank you for listening. Hope you have a great day. Bye.