Happy Scribe vs. Verbit

Happy Scribe saves us a lot of time in generating transcripts and subtitles. We have used other services, including human transcription, and really find Happy Scribe to be adequate for a starting point. Even human transcription isn't perfect when the transcriptionist isn't familiar with the domain and specific vocabulary used.

Verbit offers a captioning service that meets our requirements and is less expensive than other services we have used in the past. It offers a web interface as well as being integrated into our LMS (Canvas) so it is very flexible in how we can use it.

Since it is integrated with our media management software (Kaltura), it works seamlessly in the background.

One caveat is that you can't search for a unique ID number in the web interface, so if you have two or more videos that have the same name, you don't know which one to caption.

Incentivized

• Machine translation is remarkably accurate, though of course not perfect.
• The entire web app experience is thoughtfully designed and implemented. Using it is a pleasure.
• A sweet feature: the ability to share editable transcripts with guests through a share link.

• There's not much to dislike!

For our use, Happy Scribe's machine translation is nearly as accurate as the human translation services we used before at considerably lower cost. The web app is better designed than either of the others we tried, though we haven't used those alternatives in the past several years

• Happy Scribe enables us to make videos and audio accessible to people who prefer not to watch or listen.
• Happy Scribe saves us time and money.
• Happy Scribe just works.