Transcribing videos or podcasts is a great way to easily repurpose your existing content, or simplify the process of creating video or blog descriptions.

In this post we are going to take a look at some of the best audio to text converters to do it, both free and paid so that you are covered no matter what your budget is.

Part1. Paid Automated Options
Part2. Paid Manual Options
Part3. Free Automated Options

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Before We Get Started

There are a lot of options out there when you are looking to transcribe speech to text in any format, ranging from free transcription software to paid automated services and manual transcriptions as well. And there can also be big differences in the accuracy of the output that you’ll receive back as well as the cost of each option.

Depending on your project and your budget, each solution does have its place.

In this post we will run through our favorite options for transcribing videos on every budget and any project, no matter how accurate you need your results.

First, let’s focus on the paid options that you can choose from, then address the free ones.

Special Note:

No matter what you’re going to transcribe and how, the best results are seen when the audio and video are clear. This means little to no background noise or music. Just speech, if you can.

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Part1. Paid Automated Options

If you decide to go with the paid options, you’ll notice that in most cases, the more you pay or the more expensive the service offering is, the higher the accuracy of the results.

There are two subcategories under the automated category – websites and computer software.

What does this mean? If you have something you’d like to transcribe, you can do it through a website or download a software program and do it offline.

#1. Website Option

As you may have already realized, websites are simply platforms that let you upload files. The website processes the information and sends you the transcription. There are two worthwhile audio-to-text transcribing websites that you can choose from:

Spext or Temi.

To use them, you need to create an account and send them a link to the video, upload the video in its entirety or upload an MP3 or audio version for the video so the website can transcribe it into text.

Benefits Of Using A Website Transcription Service 

• First off, they offer a rapid turnaround time – no humans are involved, which means you don’t have to wait for someone to listen to the audio/video and type out all the information.
  Since it’s automated, the transcribing process begins right away. That’s why you get the file back really quickly.
• On top of the speed you get, the websites tend to be much cheaper than other methods. For example, Temi’s prices are 10 cents a minute whereas Spext charges 25 cents a minute. While these are two well-known transcribing sites, there are many others you can choose from.

Drawbacks To Using A Website Transcription Service

When it comes to transcribing, your video needs to be as clear as it possibly can be. This ensures the results you get back are good. If you have a lot of background noise, music or wind or, if the speaker has a strong accent, it’s going to be hard for the website to understand and transcribe the video/audio.

Spext or Temi, Which One to Choose?

For me, I’m a big fan of Temi.

Temi is great when you have long-form editing projects such as corporate work or documentaries that don’t need accurate transcription. It’s useful because it ensures you have a complete transcription of videos you’ve been working with, allowing you to finds things much faster.

The program is effective in helping you to find what a person said and when, with the timeline providing of where it was said.

In these cases where a minute number of typos or inaccurate sentences is fine, Temi works wonders.

Still, if you need a document that has been transcribed with complete accuracy or the video/audio contains a plethora of background noise or distortion, or multiple people are talking at once, the results won’t be as good. Be warned now!

#2. Software Option

Software is what you buy. You download and install the program on your computer and run the file through the transcription software.

With the software method, you have greater control over the transcription process, and the accuracy you have is much higher.

Many software programs can do this, but the best one to date is the Adobe Premier Pro plugin known as Transcriptive. It’s only available to Adobe Premier Pro users and was developed by Digital Anarchy.

Transcriptive can be purchased for $299, but the price is well worth the 95 percent accuracy it gives you. It can also take 60 minutes’ worth of video and audio and transcribe it in about 10 minutes. Since the software is a part of Adobe Premier, the entire exporting, uploading and automation process can take place via Adobe Premier.

Once you receive the transcribed video, it’s inside the main program that can be used as reference points or video markers. This helps you to find pieces of the video quickly because a timecode is linked right to the video file.

The software program via the A.I engine known as Watson or through the Speechmatics platform.

Which Option Is Better?

When it comes to choosing between Watson and Speechmatics, it’s important to understand that Watson provides you with 1,000 minutes’ worth of free transcription each month. If you’re doing a lot of transcription that goes beyond 1,000 minutes, the cost is two cents a minute. However, it’s accuracy isn’t as good.

Speechmatics, on the other hand, is a far better choice. It ensures a 95 percent accuracy rate and can work well with even very noisy video and audio background files. Speechmatics costs about seven cents a minute for video transcription.

The great thing about the transcriptive plugin is that can easily create subtitles, captions and word documents. It can transcribe more than one presenter, and quickly do so.

A test was done on both options in one of my video project to determine what results users could see. The video included background music like any complete video, and the results were okay.

Watson was fine when it had no background noise to contend with, but there was no doubt that Speechmatics was much better in accuracy and could quickly transcribe the file. In fact, a 24-minute video was returned in just two minutes.

If you work with Adobe Premier and don’t mind paying the $299 price point, it’s the ideal solution for any long-form editing projects. With a simple button click, it takes minutes – not hours or days – to get back an entire project.

It’s much easier to work from a paper edit with your clients or team when you transcribe long-form documents such as video projects, sales, videos, documentaries, etc. If not, you’ll be manually looking for what you need in the editing project.

However, if you don’t use Adobe Premier or are repulsed by the idea of shelling out $299 for the transcription service, then you may want to look for other solutions.

These are just some of the paid methods you can use, but if your budget isn’t all that big or you’re looking to save a little money, you do have some free automated and manual options to consider as well.

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Part2. Paid Manual Options

As you see, there are numerous automated options at your disposal, but let’s not forget the manual ones too. Manual options are ones that humans carry out.

A key benefit of using a human to transcribe your video is the level of accuracy you get.

The drawback to the option? It can take some time to get the finished material back.

#1. Fiverr.com or Upwork.com

If you decide to go the manual route, you have several places to turn to find a person to transcribe your audio/video.

For example, you have Upwork.com or Fiverr.com. There are hundreds of transcriptionists that can work on the video for a fraction of the price for other places.

By going this route, you may find a host of people who are willing to assist you – some are really good, some are really inexpensive, and then you have some you just need to bypass.

It can be a crap shoot finding the perfect transcriptionist to assist you, but it can be done. Just read reviews and get a feel for the person through a message before ordering.

#2. Rev.com

There are many dedicated websites that

ensure transcriptions are done by humans with some type of quality control. One such website is Rev.com.

To get started with it, you just create your Rev.com account. Upload or link the video or upload the audio you want a person to transcribe.

Rev.com creates a job, and within 12 hours, the video/audio is returned to you.

What are the benefits of using Rev.com, Fiverr.com or Upwork.com?

There are some significant positive reasons to use these services – the biggest of which is that the transcription is carried out by a human.

Secondly, the accuracy tends to be far better than any computer program or website.

You also have some control over quality. You can review the transcription, and if you’re unhappy with the product, you can ask for a revision. You can ask the transcriber to send various versions to you.

For example, you can request the addition of subtitles, closed captions or time codes. There are numerous options that can be included with the transcribed file.

If you ask your transcriber to lay the document out in a particular way, they can do this for you.

Remember, to get the kind of product you are after, you need to provide the transcriber with an outline and brief of your expectations.

If you go with Rev.com for your transcribing needs, you can expect to pay $1 per minute. This is more expensive than the automated choices you have, but since there is quality control, it’s not that much in the grand scheme of things.

A human is actually listening to and transcribing your audio/video, which is a big deal if the video/audio quality isn’t great to begin with.

In most cases, Rev.com is best to use if your audio/video has more than one speaker or has background noise, as the accuracy is bound to be much better.  It’s a big deal with multiple speakers and accents for a transcriber to wade through. While you could use an automated transcribing service, the output quality won’t be near as good as you’d see with a human overseeing the project.

Check out a video tutorial below to learn more about Rev.com and how to get a video/audio transcribed:

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Part3. Free Automated Options

Sometimes the paid options are just not within your budget, and that’s fine. There are still many free automated programs and services that will transcribe your audio and video for you.

Their level of accuracy is much lower, but they still might be enough to do exactly what you want.

#1. YouTube Audio Transcribe

YouTube offers a free Auto Transcribe feature, which works when uploading the video to the site. The only real drawback is that it can take at least 12 hours to fully transcribe – although, there have been cases where transcribing too much longer.

YouTube automatically transcribes video, and once it’s through, you can download the text, copying and pasting it into a word document or wherever you want. Other than copying and pasting, you don’t do much else.

#2. Siri or Google Voice

Another free method to transcribe video and audio is to use either Siri or Google Voice. You just need to open a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or Open Office or you can use a note app. Rather than typing and transcribing it yourself, you hit the microphone button and place the phone or other device up to the computer for the program to transcribe.

How well the transcription turns out will depend on how much background noise the program has to contend with – from you and the video.

If the video/audio is full of music, you won’t get a good transcription quality back. However, if there’s little to no background noise, you could see good results.

While you could use your phone for the transcription process, it may be better to use your desktop/laptop to get even better results.

If you use Google Chrome to transcribe videos/audios, just open Google Drive, create a new document and hit Tools at the top. Scroll down until you find the voice typing option. From there, hit the microphone and play on the video on your computer. The program will begin the transcription process.

It’s possible that you holding up your smartphone to the computer and playing the video/audio could give you some great results, but only if the computer and microphone are set up properly.

You may attain very good results if you have not set your Google account to English as the primary language or there’s an accent in the video. It’s also possible not to even have this feature.

Be sure you’re using Chrome on either PC or Mac, setting the primary language to English in Google before you try this method.

These are the best free automated options that you can use to transcribe your audio/video.

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What You Need To Remember

It’s clearly obvious how many manual and automated transcribing choices you have at your disposal for your video or audio files.

While you may keen on using just one service, you don’t have to. What you use will often depend on what needs to be done, the level of accuracy that’s necessary and how quickly the transcribed material must be returned.

With something that needs to be done without 100 percent accuracy, you can use a smartphone or open Google Docs to transcribe the material. You can also use Temi, but remember the cost is 10 cents a minute.

If you’ve got a large video editing project that doesn’t require complete accuracy, but documents will be changed on a regular basis, it may be a good idea to use the Adobe Premier Pro Transcriptive plugin. Inside it, consider Speechmatics.

If the transcribed material will be made public at some point, then you need to have a highly accurate transcribed video/audio to text document. This is where Rev.com comes in handy.

Yes, it takes a little longer than other methods, but it’s far more accurate than the other transcription services. Best of all, you have total control over the process and the format levels. With Rev.com, you get the document you want from the person you hire to complete the work. It doesn’t matter if you want a particular format or subtitles, Rev.com will ensure you get what you pay for.