Best AI Tools For Transcribing Video to Text

Ranked: Best AI video transcription tools

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Our top choice: TurboScribe.ai

Turboscribe offers 3 modes for transcriptions (optimized for either speed, balance or accuracy) and can do transcriptions in nearly 100 languages. The transcripts have good accuracy, are generated quickly and it’s easy to export the output to any format you need. The tool also has a super straightforward user interface.

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It offers generous access on the free plan with 3 uploads daily (up to 30 minute videos). If you have to transcribe a lot of content, they offer unlimited transcriptions at a very reasonable $10/month.

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How I tested these tools

I’ll be testing 5 of the most popular video to text AI tools out there. There’s some really neat video editing platforms out there that can transcribe videos, and I’ll include one of them, but in general what I’m going after here are simple online tools to get an AI transcript from a video. For the content I will give the different tools to transcribe, I’ll be using the same video across my test to ensure I can compare the different transcriptions; an interview scene from a TV show that mainly includes 2 people talking points about US law.

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Key considerations

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There’s a lot of reasons for why you might want to transcribe a video into text. Repurposing a video into a blog post, getting a translation of a video to aid understanding, transcribing YouTube videos to text, getting quick summaries out of long-videos… the list goes on. If you’re reading this article, I’m sure you already have at least some idea of why you would like to transcribe a video with AI, and I’m here to show you the best video to text converter.

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Also, while the focus of this article is about transcribing video, most of the tools featured here also lets you transcribe plain audio files.

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1. TurboScribe.ai

Best for quick and reliable transcriptions

See the transcript it generated

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Turboscribe is powered by Whisper, an open source speech model by OpenAI, and does accurate transcription (claims 99.8% accuracy) in an impressive 98 languages. The tool also recognizes different speakers, but you have to adjust this in the settings (be sure to tick the dropdown before transcribing). Choosing to recognize speakers adds a minute or two during processing.

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A feature that sets Turboscribe apart is its three different transcription modes: Cheetah (fastest), Dolphin (balanced), and Whale (most accurate). I used the Whale mode for the test to ensure accuracy for my test. The three modes serve to adjust detail and speed for transcribing larger audio files, so if you’re aiming to transcribe long-form video, I’d give Turboscribe a closer look. Also, as you would expect, it also supports all the relevant export formats such as DOCX, PDF, TXT, and subtitles.

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On the paid plan, users can upload files up to 10 hours (!)  long and 5GB in size, making it the perfect tool for transcribing long-form video such as lectures, seminars, podcasts, etc. Turboscribe also has AI audio restoration for users working with terrible audio, so if your transcripts aren’t giving you the results you want, you might want to consider running an audio restoration procedure first, before transcribing.

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The process of using Turboscribe is easy as pie. Just upload the audio or video file, and let the tool do its job. The transcription is accurate (even with jargon) and is auto-formatted in neat paragraphs complete with the proper punctuations and timestamps.

However, the speaker recognition feature is inaccurate in some parts of the transcript. It didn’t pick up on the fast exchanges between speaker 1 and 2. So a bit of manual work might be required on this part.

Different export formats and editing options are readily seen on the right hand of the screen so users can directly edit within the platform before exporting the transcripts.

You can try Turboscribe for free through their website.

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2. Notta.ai

Best for meeting notes and automated summaries

See the transcript it generated

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Notta is another AI tool that simplifies transcriptions, and is available in over 58 languages. It can also transcribe online meetings in real-time, making it great for capturing discussions and meeting notes. Notta even has an AI powered summarizer which can quickly help you make sense out of your transcribed content.

There are also a few handy editing options available. Once Notta is done transcribing, users can leave notes and labels (key point, to-do, project) for each segment of the transcription, choose specific parts of the transcription they want to share, or make edits to the transcribed text directly.

While the transcription was accurate, it missed a couple of times in terms of recognising the speaker — and so a bit of manual work might still be required.

Notta’s AI bot offers real-time transcriptions

An additional, highly useful feature from Notta is the ability to transcribe online meetings. For services like Google Meet, Team and Zoom, you can simply copy-paste the meeting link, and Notta can join in as a participant and transcribe in real time. I was pleasantly surprised at how fast and accurate the live transcription was.

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You can try Notta.ai for free through their website or downloading through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

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3. Happyscribe

When you might need an actual human to do it

See the transcript it generated

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Happyscribe offers simple and intuitive transcription and subtitles with a few clicks. The free plan gives you 10 minutes of transcription for free at 85% accuracy, according to the site. This provides a quick and cost-free solution for anyone in need of a transcribed audio or video.

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One thing I liked about Happyscribe is that it has some good collaboration features; users can share either a ‘viewing’ link or an ‘editing’ link for easy collaboration.

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Happyscribe also offers a wide selection of export formats, ranging from .TXT, .SRT, and .HTML, and even with specific formats for video editing software such as .XML (for Premiere Pro), .FCPXML (for Final Cut Pro), and .EDL (for Davinci Resolve).

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A unique feature of Happyscribe is that, in addition to its fully automated AI transcriptions, it offers transcripts and translations done by a human. For crucial documents like a company’s annual reviews or important seminars; paying the premium for a human made transcription might be worthwhile as it ensures the most accurate and reliable transcript possible.

You can try Happyscribe by visiting their website.

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4. Rask.ai

Best for dubbing videos with AI

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Rask is a platform that’s designed for video localization, basically translated or dubbed content, in over 130 different languages. Its target audience are marketers, content creators, and businesses looking to widen their reach through translated and ‘localized’ content. This gives creators more options to reach new audiences across languages.

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The interface is fairly easy to use. After the video is done processing, users will be greeted with an intuitive timeline editor where everything is laid out. Transcription on the right, translation on the left, and an audio timeline at the bottom of the screen where users can easily adjust and fine-tune the output.

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After converting a video to text, you can translate the content and add subtitles. Overall, the AI transcription is quick and near accurate. Mine took about 5 minutes of processing. Some mistakes in the transcription appeared for me, so you might have to do a bit of manual tweaking.

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Another impressive feature of Rask.ai is the voice clone feature. The AI will do its best job to reproduce the tone and intonations of the original audio and apply that to the translated audio; making ‘localized’ content as natural and authentic as it can be. Since the audio will be out of sync since it’s dubbed, Rask also offers a lip-sync feature, but I didn’t get to test it as it’s only available on their paid plans.

The free version is quite restrictive in terms of length – it only allows you to translate and transcribe your content up to 1 minute. If you upgrade to Creator at 50$/month, you get 25 minutes. It’s definitely not a tool if you want to simply transcribe your university lectures, but if you’re a business looking to repurpose valuable video content to new languages, it might be a good option.

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You can try Rask.ai by visiting their website.