Transcripts

Existing services

There exist many services—both free and paid—that offer transcription, but one recent development is important to keep in mind: Whisper. It is an open-source machine learning model capable of transcribing speech in a hundred languages.

Although being free, Whisper is one of the best—if not the best—transcription tools. As a result, many transcription services that pride themselves on their quality, are actually using a model that you can utilize yourself for free! That is not to say that whatever they offer—better user interface or compute speed—is not worth it, just that you probably shouldn't expect a better transcription quality than Whisper by paying for an expensive service!

Below you can find several options.

Free Podcast Transcription by Spreaker (free)

This tools runs the Whisper model locally on your computer (in your browser, in fact). After the transcription is complete, you can download an SRT file (a closed-captions file), which you can then upload to RSS Blue.

MacWhisper (free/paid)

If you're on macOS, you may use MacWhisper, which also runs locally. The free version may suffice for many podcasters, but you can pay a one-time fee to access premium features, like adding speaker names to audio segments.

Hindenburg Pro 2 (paid)

Hindenburg seemingly doesn't use Whisper, potentially affecting transcription quality. Regardless, one can use Hindenburg as a transcript-based editor, which many people prefer over analyzing waveforms.

Uploading transcripts to RSS Blue

Transcription services typically offer SRT and WebVTT export formats, both of which are supported by RSS Blue. Once uploaded, transcripts become available in many Podcating 2.0 apps.