Convert video or audio to text with AI

Whether it's a podcast episode, an interview, a lecture recording or a meeting, turning spoken video or audio into text usually means either paying a per-minute cloud transcription service or doing it by hand. AI Subtitle Studio transcribes any video file into accurate, timestamped text using AI that runs entirely on your own computer.

What it's useful for

  • Podcasters — generate an episode transcript for your show notes or website, which also helps search engines index your content.
  • Interviewers and researchers — turn recorded interviews into text for quoting, coding or analysis, without manual transcription.
  • Students and educators — transcribe lecture recordings into searchable notes.
  • Content creators — see the dedicated YouTube captioning guide.
  • Teams — see the dedicated meeting transcription guide.

How the transcription works

AI Subtitle Studio uses Whisper AI speech recognition, running locally on your Mac or PC — the same underlying technology behind many paid cloud transcription tools, but with no upload step and no usage-based billing. Add the video file to the Dashboard, pick the spoken language (or let it auto-detect), choose a model size, and transcribe.

Model size trades speed for accuracy: smaller models (Tiny, Base) transcribe faster and are fine for quick drafts; larger models (Medium, Large) take longer but produce more accurate results — a good choice when the transcript itself is the deliverable, like a published show-notes page.

Improving accuracy for niche or technical content

Use the Vocabulary hint field to list guest names, technical terms, product names, or anything specific to your recording — this meaningfully improves recognition of words a general-purpose model would otherwise guess at.

Getting a clean, readable transcript

Export as TXT for a plain-text document with no timestamps — ideal for show notes, articles, or research coding. Export as SRT or VTT instead if you need timestamps, for example to sync a transcript with a video player or to caption the same recording for accessibility. Run the built-in Cleanup tool first to strip filler words, fix punctuation and tidy formatting artifacts from the raw AI output.

Processing many recordings at once

Have a backlog of episodes, interviews or recordings? Add them all to the Dashboard queue and run Transcribe across every checked file in one batch, unattended.

How to convert video or audio to text

  1. Add your recording Drag the video file into the Dashboard.
  2. Set language and model Pick the spoken language and a model size — larger for higher accuracy, smaller for speed.
  3. Add a vocabulary hint (optional) List names or technical terms for better recognition.
  4. Transcribe AI transcription runs locally, producing a fully timed text.
  5. Clean up and export Optionally run Cleanup to tidy the output, then export as TXT for a plain transcript, or SRT/VTT for timestamps.

Transcribe your first recording free

Free to try on Windows & macOS · full version $9.99 one-time · 100% offline

Frequently asked questions

Does this work with audio-only files like MP3?
The Dashboard imports video container files (MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV, WMV, FLV, WebM and more). If you only have a raw audio file, it will typically need to be in or converted to one of those containers first.
How accurate is AI transcription?
Very accurate on clear speech with a good source recording. Heavy accents, overlapping speakers, background music or poor audio quality reduce accuracy — the built-in editor makes it quick to fix any mistakes.
Does it identify different speakers?
No — it produces one continuous transcript with accurate timing, not speaker-labeled dialogue.
Is there a cost per minute transcribed?
No. Transcription runs on your own hardware, so there's no usage-based fee — only the one-time app license.
Can I translate the transcript afterward?
Yes — once you have a transcript, translate it into other languages with the app's AI subtitle translation feature.

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