Drop it in
Interviews, tutorials or a camera roll clip. Choose a file and its language.
Video to Text Transcription
A transcript you can edit. Subtitles you can use. Choose a video to get started.
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Video or audio files
Choose several files to transcribe them one after another.
A transcript you can work with
00:04
Click a word.
Hear the moment.
Edit the text. Label the speakers.
Export subtitles that stay in sync.
Several files
Batch
Free: up to 30 minutes per file, one file at a time. With credits: up to 3 hours per file, two at a time, with speaker labels. Finished transcripts are saved in Saved transcripts on this device; keep this tab open until files finish.
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Free up to 30 minutes, 2 files a day. Credits add longer files (up to 3 hours), speaker labels and batches.
Uploading
Live transcript
Words appear as each 30-second section finishes. The editor opens when the whole recording is done.
Transcript ready
Your transcript
0:000:00
Click a word to hear it. Choose Edit to make a correction.
Edits save on this device.
Find & replace
Replace text across the whole transcript, including passages outside the current search. Undo restores the whole change.
Enter the text to find.
Take it with you
Your edits are included in every export.
Plain text (.txt).
Review names, numbers and speaker labels before sharing. Automatic transcripts can make mistakes.
Translate
Machine translation, included with your credits. Review it before use.
Uses your wording when you choose Translate. Later edits do not update an existing translation.
For a translated file, choose Text, Word, SRT, VTT, CSV or JSON above. Captioned video uses the original language.
Need to know who said what? Transcribe again with speaker labels, using credits. This transcript stays in Saved transcripts.
Make it yours
Listen, search and fix a word. Name each speaker. Your edits save as you go.
Put it to work
Download captions for your video editor, or a clean transcript for your article.
From a video file to text
Video transcription makes spoken content searchable without watching the whole recording again: recorded interviews, tutorials, lectures, presentations or Zoom meetings. Choose an MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV, AVI, M4V or MPEG file from your device, pick its spoken language or let StemVocal detect it, and start. StemVocal transcribes the soundtrack, not the picture: a video without an audio track has nothing to transcribe, and one whose picture will not play in the preview may still have a usable soundtrack. Audio files such as MP3, M4A and WAV work here too.
Two free jobs a day, shared with the other StemVocal tools and reset at midnight UTC, cover videos up to 30 minutes each without an account. Longer videos, up to three hours and 1 GB, use one credit for each started 30 minutes, from a file pack, the monthly Transcription plan or Unlimited, which includes them without credits. AVI and MPEG files may need credits. Transcription uses Whisper large-v3-turbo, and a free job may use the smaller Whisper base; neither promises a word-perfect transcript.
Make subtitles that fit your edit
Read alongside the video, click a word to revisit its moment, and correct the text before exporting. The preview shows captions over the video as it plays, full screen too, and they follow your corrections. Choose how many people speak for suggested speaker labels, which use credits. Download SRT for most video editors, or VTT for web video players. These are subtitle files you can import into another editor; they are not burned into the original video. Edited turns keep their original start and end times, with caption timing distributed across the correction. Check synchronization before publishing. If an exported SRT or VTT is consistently early or late, the subtitle timing tool shifts every cue by the same amount. When subtitles are the goal, the subtitle generator opens with SRT selected and explains how each cue is timed.
For a written version, download TXT, Word, CSV or JSON, or use Print / PDF and your browser’s save option, with a timestamp on each turn in Text, Word and print if you want one. For subtitles in another language, translate a paid transcript into English, or from English into 15 other languages, at no extra cost, then download the translation as text or subtitles. Finish your corrections first: translation uses your wording at the moment you choose Translate, and later edits do not change it. Review machine translation before you publish it. To translate a subtitle file you already have, use the subtitle translator. Your original video is not re-encoded or modified. This tool accepts files from your device, not YouTube links or other download URLs. For the words of a YouTube video, copy the transcript YouTube shows and turn it into clean text or subtitles on the YouTube transcript page.
When a name or term recurs through your captions, Find & replace corrects every occurrence at once: check the match count, choose case or whole-word matching, and replace. One Undo restores the whole replacement, word timing included.
SRT, VTT or a written transcript?
| What you are making | Export | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| Subtitles in a video editor | SRT | Import the file as a subtitle track, then check timing |
| Captions for a web video player | VTT | Attach the file to a player that supports WebVTT |
| Interview notes or a written article | TXT or Word (DOCX) | Edit the wording and verify quotations against playback |
| A spreadsheet of timestamped turns | CSV | Use the start/end seconds to find each passage |
Open the subtitle examples to compare SRT’s numbered cues with VTT’s WEBVTT header. Both preserve text and cue times; neither places permanent text into your video’s pixels. For captions drawn onto this transcript’s video, choose Video in the same export menu. The burned-in captions guide explains the size, style and position choices; you do not need to transcribe the file again.
Work with audio too
Have a podcast recording or voice memo without video? Open StemVocal’s audio studio for an audio player and the same transcript editor. To prepare a music track, visit the music separator. Use the same email on each site to access your existing credit wallet.
Come back to a video later
Open Saved transcripts to correct earlier work or download it again; reopening a transcript uses no credit. It stays in this browser, on this site. To watch the captions over the picture again, reconnect the same original video. Delete each saved copy when you no longer need it, and download anything important, because browser storage can be cleared or evicted.
Get cleaner captions
The soundtrack decides the result. A microphone near the speaker does better than one across the room, quieter background music leaves more words audible, and choosing the spoken language helps when automatic detection is unsure. Expect missed or wrong words in noisy or very quiet passages. When people talk over each other, the transcript usually keeps one voice. Accuracy was measured on clear read speech in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Turkish, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin Chinese; the other languages in the menu vary more. Check names, figures and quotations against the video before you publish captions. This is an editing tool, not a certified transcription service.
See what an SRT subtitle file contains
A numbered cue has a start time, an end time and the words shown during that interval. Import the file into your video editor as a subtitle track. This written example demonstrates the export format; it is not a transcription accuracy sample.
1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000
What should we check before publishing?
2
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:10,000
Check names and numbers
against the recording. Then save
3
00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:12,000
the corrected transcript.
Example TXT · Example SRT · Example VTT · Example CSV
SRT uses a comma before milliseconds; WebVTT uses a dot and begins with WEBVTT. These files contain captions, not the video itself. Review cue timing against your recording.
Good to know
Is video transcription free?
Yes, for 2 jobs a day up to 30 minutes each. The allowance is shared across StemVocal's audio transcription, video transcription and music separation, and resets at midnight UTC. Extra jobs, longer videos and speaker labels use credits: a credit pack, the $9/month Transcription plan (up to 30 hours) or Unlimited.
Which file types work?
MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV, AVI, M4V and MPEG videos from your device, plus audio files such as MP3, M4A and WAV, up to 1 GB and three hours. AVI and MPEG files may need credits. The transcript comes from the soundtrack, so a video without sound has nothing to transcribe. YouTube links and other download URLs are not accepted; for a YouTube video, paste the transcript YouTube shows into the YouTube transcript page.
Can I burn captions into the video?
Yes. After transcription, choose Video in the export menu to draw your edited captions onto a new copy of the video, with three sizes, three styles and a top or bottom position. The copy is made in your browser, as MP4 where the browser can encode it and WebM otherwise, and nothing more is uploaded. Adding captions is free; the transcription itself uses your allowance or credits. For a video editor or web player, download SRT or VTT instead.
How many credits does a long recording use?
One credit per started 30 minutes: a 20-minute video uses one, 45 minutes uses two and three hours uses six. You choose the paid action before any credit is reserved, and a failed job returns its credits to the original allowance. Unlimited includes these jobs without spending credits.
What happens to my upload?
The video is uploaded to private storage for transcription, with 24-hour access and deletion normally within another 24 hours, and you can delete it sooner from the editor. Keep the tab open until the upload finishes; an interrupted upload can resume its completed parts, and you can return on the same device within 24 hours. When a free transcription runs in your browser instead, keep the tab open until it finishes: the video and text stay on your device. Saved transcripts and edits remain in this browser until you delete them, clear site data or the browser evicts them.