Transcribing vox pops involves creating text documents of short recordings of answers of a group of people to a single question for purposes of market research, or radio or television features.

2. Tips to Ensure Accuracy in Vox Pops Transcription
Transcribing vox pops involves creating text documents of short recordings of
answers of a group of people to a single question for purposes of market
research, or radio or television features.
If you are looking for a snapshot of public opinion on any single straight forward
question or sequence of questions, Vox pops is a great tool.
Vox pops (derived from Latin phrase Vox Populi) means the “voice of the people” and
involves recording the direct responses of people when asked a question or a series of
questions requiring short answers about a particular topic or issue. These responses to
the same question are a quick way of gauging public opinion on a current issue or event
for market research, university projects, TV shows/interviews, news program,
commercial films, podcasts, documentaries, news program, promotional videos and a
wide variety of radio and television broadcasts. Vox pops recordings allow people to
participate and express their views on a specific issue and the person asking the
question to see the facial expressions and appearances that go with people’s words and
views.
Vox pops or one-to-one interview transcription is essential as it helps to edit the
audio- video content before it is broadcast. On the other hand, if it is a market research
content, it is useful to have a written version that can easily be analyzed. A full in-depth
analysis of the content is very important for market research.
Time Stamp Format in Vox Pops Transcription - Benefits
Hiring the services of an experienced transcriptionist would be useful when a long
stream of vox pops in one single recording has to be transcribed. A professional
transcriptionist will be able to offer you a time-stamp option which involves inserting the
time (in minutes and seconds) at regular intervals. This would help you to find the most
relevant point in the recording by just looking at the transcript. This option indicates the
time in the recording at the number of minutes specified - the transcript will put a
marker at every 5 minutes if a 5 minute time stamp is inserted, and so on).
Some equipment comes with an option to put a bleep sound every so-many minutes to
help the transcriptionists fix the time stamps. However, it is not advisable use such

3. recording equipments as that may seriously affect the accuracy of the transcripts. The
transcriptionist cannot clearly listen or understand what is being said in the recording, if
the player puts in a bleep sound every so – many minutes. An experienced and skilled
transcriptionist can accurately transcribe all the recorded documents by correctly
inserting the time stamps even without using recording equipment or player. Besides, a
skilled transcriptionist will be able to decipher different accents and nuances of the
interviewees.
The content of vox pops recordings will very much depend on the purpose of your
research. For instance, if you are recording for a TV or radio broadcast, you would want
it to be evident that they were shot in an outdoor location, but without background
traffic noises to obscure the interviewee voice. To ensure an accurate transcript,
background sounds are best kept to a minimum. Options for recording clarity include
• Recording with a noise canceling microphone (to reduce the ambient noise), with
the background noise recorded on another microphone
• Send the recording captured from the noise canceling microphone for
transcription
• Using sound editing software to reduce the background noise and save it as a
different version for transcription. However, as the background noise is in the
same range as human voice, there is the chance that when the ambient sound is
reduced or deleted, the voice recording gets deleted too.
Accuracy in vox pops transcription can be ensured by partnering with a professional
transcription company. Reputable firms have a professional and skilled team of
transcriptionists that can provide verbatim or non-verbatim one-to-one interview
transcription in simple, readable and customized format, with or without time-stamping.