The cloud, that magical place where technology happens, you can’t ignore it is everywhere in our work and personal lives. The cloud increases productivity by allowing us to work when and where we want, reduces costs in terms of allowing us to buy only what we need and often bypassing expensive (time and money) IT support staff.
If you are an office or practice manager likely you would have already embraced digital transformation in one way or another. Perhaps you use Microsoft’s Office 365 suite, Xero for your accounting, AWS/Azure for your servers, Google GSuite, Dropbox, Adobe the list goes on. Likely you have heard of or are using Genie, also cloud based.
A necessity for legal/medical practices dictation and transcription it has stayed the constant over the years. Sure you may have tried voice to text, likely with Dragon at some point and either loved it or hated it. Recently we have seen a move from physical handheld dictaphones to apps on the one thing we carry everywhere, our smartphones. Traditionally we would dictate and transcribe at the office or practice but with the recent COVID pandemic that has shattered the old and launched us into the new normal – work from home, work from anywhere and at anytime.
Philips have been innovating and have taken the lead on the global digital dictation and transcription market with their Philips Speechlive solution. It is a fully cloud hosted solution that lets dictation authors via an app or any (Philips, Olympus, Sony, Grundig etc) physical dictaphone securely share dictation audio with your typing pool.
The Philips Speechlive cloud is hosted in Australia, important for data sovereignty, as your confidential client or patient securely encrypted dictation audio stays in-country. This is a requirement for federal and government services and should also be for your business.
Dictation Authors can switch to the Philips Speechlive app on their iPhone or Android smartphone to dictate anytime from anywhere in the world or simply use the physical handheld dictaphone they know, love and are already using, any brand.
Via the Philips Speechlive web interface you can even dictate directly via the web browser using your PC/Mac microphone or connected headset and microphone.
Regardless of how you dictate your audio is all in one easy to navigate Speechlive portal. Upload audio, check the status of transcription, send audio to speech recognition if you dictation is urgent, dictate directly in Speechlive. Fully flexible dictation and transcription solution that fits how you dictate.
Philips provide a free file upload client to collect and send digital dictation from Olympus and Philips digital dictaphones when docked. More information in this blog post Interested in Philips Speechlive But Have Invested in Olympus?
With Philips Speechlive Transcription Typists can now transcribe their audio through a web browser. Think about that for a minute, a web browser. That means no local software to install. No local software to licence. No local software to try and configure. No local to software to work out if and how if works with a dictaphone. Use a browser on any internet connected Windows PC or Apple Mac, anywhere, anytime.
Need to use a transcripton typing footpedal instead of hot-keys? No worries, just grab a Philips ACC2330 pedal, they too can be used via a browser on a Mac or Windows PC.
The status of each dictation audio is always visible to Authors both on their Philips Speechlive app or when logged into the Speechlive web portal. For transcription typists, alerted to new and priority dictations via the Speechlive portal, they also see when a dictation audio is being processed by another typist so no audio is doubled up.
With Philips Speechlive solution the most common use case is dictate, send and the transcription typist will process.
But Speechlive has a couple of additional options that you can take advantage of as and when you need it, you decide.
As mentioned earlier in this post we have all tried at some point or another Dragon with mixed results, some good many not. Expensive software, requires training, which is installed locally on local PCs. This is an old fashioned and unsustainable model, relying on local infrastructure to have the power and resources to process, quickly, spoken words to text. Philips have used the power of cloud computing to offer as an option automated voice to text for dictation via Speechlive.
Perfect for urgent legal/medical dictation. Use Speechlive to do the heavy lifting and quickly convert your dictation to text ready for your typist to proofread. Faster than transcription alone, upto 7x faster.
Click here for an overview of this service in action including a video demonstration.
Click here for Philips Speechlive Voice Recognition pricing.
Philips have their own outsourced transcription service. Your audio uploaded to Speechlive can be submitted to the Philips transcription pool to have real people listen to and transcribe your audio. This is perfect if your usual transcriptionist or outsourced typing provider is on extended leave or if you have “transcription intensive” audio, for example a long audio length recording with multiple speakers, maybe a meeting.
Click here for Philips Transcription Service pricing details.
Philips Speechlive can be used with both Olympus and Philips physical dictaphones. If you have invested in Olympus but have fallen behind with ODMS software releases don’t bother to upgrade (at a $ cost) simply BYO Olympus dictaphone and use it with Philips Speechlive, a free easy to use file uploader client will send your audio to Speechlive for you from any physical dictaphone.
Using the Olympus Dictation App and fed up of the constant service interruptions when you just want to dictate? Or the yearly complexity to simply renew your ODDS (Olympus Dictation Delivery Service) licence(s) and either forgetting your Olympus Dictation Portal password? Simply switch to Philips Speechlive with Dictate Australia, any remaining months left on your licence(s) will be prorated.
We will do all the setup for you for free and supply easy, simple to follow steps to move from one to another.
Philips Speechlive is a subscription based service, an opex cost rather than capex. Each dictation author and each transcription typist requires a licence. There is an Author and a Typist licence which defines the users role, they cost the same.
The Speechlive licence is called Speechlive Advanced Business Package and can be purchased as a one year or two year licence. Click here for specific details on the Speechlive licence.
As a guide here are some sample cost comparisons.
SpeechLive Author licence, with Philips Speechlive App for iPhone/Android is $199 each. incl GST compared to Olympus ODDS which costs $149 each incl. GST. They are both one year licences. A Speechlive two year subscription licence is $299, the same cost as Olympus ODDS over the same period.
The backend via speechlive.com to link Authors with Typists is much easier to navigate than Olympus ODDS and is hosted in Australia, Olympus host their solution in Europe.
Speechlive Typist licence costs the same $199 each incl. GST. Compare this to Olympus ODMS R7 Transcription module which in its own costs $249 and in a kit with a pedal and headset $379. Note, Olympus ODMS can only be installed and used on one computer. Want to work from home you will need another licence. Speechlive Typist can be used on any computer, Mac or Windows, with an internet connection via the Google Chrome or Firefox web browser.
No software installed locally. No IT support needed to come setup and and configure the software for you. No extra licences to buy when you work from home or remote. No costly software upgrades.
Dictate Australia and Philips Dictation Australia are a team, we are here to help and support you at every step of your digital dictation and transcription journey. Something Dictate Australia have been doing for over 15 years, your trusted dictation and transcription technology partner.