Get YouTube Transcriptions on RhinoSpike

Just a quick update to mention that RhinoSpike now supports YouTube videos. What this means is that you can find a YouTube video in your foreign language and make a Script Request out of it. A native speaker will watch the video and transcribe it for you!

To do it, create a Script Request as you normally would. See the last post about how to make a Script Request on RhinoSpike for details on that. When you get to the Script Request creation page, enter a YouTube video url in the appropriate space:

Get foreign language YouTube videos transcribed for you by a native speaker

Get foreign language YouTube videos transcribed for you by a native speaker

When you click “Create”, RhinoSpike will embed the YouTube video into your script request. Currently, we support YouTube urls in the following formats:

  • http://youtube.com/watch?v=[video_id]
  • http://youtube.com/v/[video_id]
  • http://youtu.be/[video_id]

The only caveat is that the video must be embeddable. Occasionally YouTube users will choose to turn off embedding. These videos won’t work with RhinoSpike, so it may be worth your while to double-check if the video you want transcribed allows embedding.

For a sample of a completed YouTube transcription on RhinoSpike, check this out: He-man intro transcribed on RhinoSpike.

Get foreign language YouTube videos transcribed for you by a native speaker!
Try it out and let us know what you think!

Help Videos

We’ve also started the process of creating help videos to help new users learn the site. RhinoSpike co-founder Peter made the first one and it fits right in with this blog post. How so? It teaches you how to create a Script Request using either a YouTube video or an audio file! Check it out here:

Have fun! We love you!

Foreign Language Transcriptions On Demand

We updated RhinoSpike today with a new feature. It’s still a work in progress, but we wanted to go ahead and roll it out and get feedback on it.

One of our most requested features was to have a “reverse” RhinoSpike. Users wanted to upload a foreign language audio file and have a native speaker transcribe it for them. Well, now you can do just that with a little thing called a Script Request.

Creating a new Script Request

Now when you click the rhino Submit button you are given a choice: Audio Request or Script Request.

Choose Audio Request or Script Request

Pick your poison (both are yummy poisons that are extremely good for you)

Clicking Audio Request will send you down a familiar path, but Script Request is new. Clicking Script Request will take you to a page where you can submit audio for a native speaker to transcribe for you. Just enter a title, select a language and upload the file and it will be submitted into the queue for that language.

Creating a new Script Request on RhinoSpike

Creating a new Script Request

The Queue

The Script Queue works just like the Audio Queue. Transcribing for other users will bump your Script Requests ahead in the queue. Not only that, it will also bump your Audio Requests ahead in the Audio Queue! Recording your voice for other users will likewise bump both your Audio and Script Requests!

So if you don’t have a mic, or if you were too shy to record yourself before, you now have a new way to help other users and get your own requests pushed to the top.

How To Transcribe

The “rhino Record button” has now been renamed to the “rhino Queue button”. Clicking the Queue button will take you to a list of pending Audio and Script Requests. The Record! and Transcribe! buttons near the top of the queue page toggle between the two queues. To transcribe, toggle to the Script Queue and click on a blue [ TRANSCRIBE ] link.

Click the Queue button, then select the Script Queue.

Click the Queue button, then select the Script Queue.

Work in Progress

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, this feature is a work in progress. We are still working on integrating Script Requests into the site as a whole and hammering out bug-fixes. We wanted to give you guys a peek early so that we could get feedback. Expect to see some fine-tuning in the days and weeks to come. Embedding YouTube clips is on the list.

Try it out and let us know what you think!

RhinoSpike.com