Consulting & System Integration
R2 Mechanics supports archives, museums, research institutions and digitisation service providers in planning and integrating locally operated AI systems for audio and video transcription.
Drawing on our practical experience with different speech recognition models, multilingual archival material and complex audio processing workflows, we analyse existing requirements and develop suitable technical concepts.
Not every institution wants to hand its recordings to an external service provider. Some collections are meant to stay in-house; others are to be catalogued over the long term under the institution’s own responsibility. For these cases, we plan and support building or extending an in-house transcription environment.
01
You send us your material. R2 Mechanics processes it in its own environment and delivers source-linked transcripts and analysis. This service continues unchanged.
What you receive →02
You want to transcribe in-house. We plan, integrate and monitor processing on your own infrastructure. Your material stays in your environment.
Services
Services can be booked individually or combined. Scope and deliverables are agreed in writing before work begins.
01
Assessment of existing collections, technical requirements and suitable processing methods, optionally based on a representative sample of your material.
DeliverableA written assessment of what is realistic for your collection, where the limits are and what effort to expect.
02
Design of the processing chain, from ingesting recordings through recognition, speaker and language analysis to review, output formats and archiving.
DeliverableA documented target architecture for a local or hybrid environment.
03
Comparison of suitable speech recognition and analysis methods on your own material, with regard to languages, recording quality and speaker structure.
DeliverableA comparison report with a recommendation, independent of any particular vendor.
04
Estimation of compute, storage and throughput for your volume, local or hybrid, for new purchases as well as for extending existing systems.
DeliverableA hardware and resource plan with a clear rationale.
05
Setup and adaptation of transcription and analysis workflows on client-side infrastructure and connection to existing working processes.
DeliverableA configured, tested and documented processing environment.
06
Review procedures for recognition quality, speaker attribution and timing, so that uncertainty stays visible and can be checked where it matters.
DeliverableDefined review steps and criteria for releasing results.
07
Tools for operational monitoring, error diagnosis and traceable documentation of processing.
DeliverableAn overview of throughput, errors and quality during operation.
Approach
01
Initial consultation
We discuss your collection, goals, existing infrastructure and constraints. The conversation is without obligation.
02
Feasibility study
We test which methods deliver reliable results under your conditions, optionally on a representative sample.
03
Architecture and planning
System architecture, engine comparison and hardware planning. Scope and deliverables are agreed in writing before work begins.
04
Integration
Setup or adaptation on your infrastructure, testing with real material and documentation of the configuration.
05
Quality assurance and monitoring
Review procedures, operational monitoring and handover to your team, with continued support during operation if desired.
Basis of experience
This service area is built on the processing environment that R2 Mechanics developed for its own archival transcription work and operates itself. We built and tested its architecture, engine comparisons, hardware planning, quality assurance and monitoring in our own day-to-day operation.
The demonstration projects show the results of this environment on difficult, long-form and multilingual material. The public methodology is documented on GitHub.
In-house cataloguing of large audio and video collections.
Local processing of interviews, oral history and research recordings.
Transcription and analysis as part of their own digitisation services.
Processing confidential recordings under their own requirements.
Contact us for an initial, no-obligation discussion of your technical requirements.
Request an initial consultation →