Lecture transcription for students and teachers

A 75 minute lecture is a lot of audio to take notes from. Turn the recording into text you can search and skim, free on your own device or fast on ours.

Why transcribe lectures

• Search instead of scrub. Find the moment a term was defined without replaying the whole class.
• Quote accurately. When an essay or study guide needs the lecturer's exact words, you have them.
• Review in less time. Most people read faster than a lecturer speaks, so skimming a transcript beats rewatching.
• Accessibility. Text helps students who are deaf or hard of hearing, and anyone studying in a second language.

Two lanes, depending on your deadline

In your browser: free for the whole semester

The browser lane is free, unlimited and needs no account, which suits a student budget. The Whisper speech model runs on your own computer, so the recording never leaves your device. It is slower than the fast lane, and how long it takes depends on your machine; the first run downloads the model once. Start it, leave the tab open, and come back to the text. This lane does not label speakers.

Fast: when the exam is tomorrow

On the fast lane, your browser converts the file to audio, uploads that audio (about 115 MB per hour), and our servers transcribe it in seconds. The first two steps depend on your device and connection, so the total time varies. Speaker labels separate the lecturer from questions in the room, and the spoken language is detected automatically, so a lecture in another language needs no setup. It needs a free account, and your recording is stored with that account until you delete it.

What a semester costs

A free account transcribes files up to 30 minutes free, 3 a day, so a full lecture needs pack or Pro hours. A course with two 75 minute lectures a week adds up to roughly 10 to 11 hours of audio a month. Pro, at $9.99 a month for 10 fast hours, covers most of that, and you can cancel when the term ends. If you only need a few lectures, an hour pack is $5 for 3 fast hours, paid once, and the hours never expire, so leftover time carries into next term. Or transcribe everything in the browser lane for free.

Recording a lecture that transcribes well

• Ask first. Many schools and instructors have rules about recording classes. Check the policy and ask the lecturer before you record.
• Sit near the front. Distance from the speaker matters more than the device you use.
• Use the official recording if there is one. A lecture capture system or a video posted by the instructor usually has cleaner audio than a phone in a backpack.
• Keep the phone still. Handling noise and rustling paper get picked up loudly when the device is close to you.

For instructors

If you record your own lectures, a transcript makes it easier to publish notes and give students a text version to review. Use the fast lane when you need the text quickly after class. Check technical terms and names against the audio before you share it, since specialized vocabulary is where automatic transcripts most often slip.