Tag Archives: transcription

Transcribing and Translating with Subtitle Edit

Posted on by

By Nelson Garcia

Introduction

This guide provides a step-by-step overview of how to use Subtitle Edit (SE) for transcription and translation tasks. While Subtitle Edit is primarily a subtitle creation and editing tool, its integration with speech recognition engines such as Whisper makes it a useful solution for generating transcripts and translating subtitles. This document is designed for paralegals, investigators, and translators who need practical instructions for working with audio and video files.

Continue reading →

Lab Notes: Transcription with Vibe and Buzz

Posted on by

By Nelson Garcia

Vibe and Buzz are free audio/video transcription programs. 

Vibe

Vibe is an on-device transcription program that will take an audio file or a video file and convert whatever is spoken in that file into text that you can format in a bunch of different ways.  It is simple to use, and it runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It is open source in both the software and the engine that it is using. It uses Open AI Whisper engine to do the transcription. 

Useful features include:

  • It can function offline
  • It will transcribe into over 90 different languages.
  • It has diarization (speaker recognition) and can edit\change speakers.
  • It can be saved in various formats including .txt, .srt., .docx, and .pdf.
  • It can summarize transcripts with llama or Claude (additional steps required)
  • Optimized for GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).
  • It will NOT translate from English to another language, but it can translate into English from over 90 languages.
  • Note: Like other transcription software\programs, it doesn’t handle crosstalk very well.
Continue reading →

Guide: Transcribing with Shotcut

Posted on by

By Nelson Garcia

Shotcut is a free, open-source, cross-platform video editor for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It supports a wide range of formats and resolutions including 4K. Features include subtitles, timeline editing, multiple tracks, and various effects.[1]

Subtitling in Shotcut is the focus of this post.  Through Shotcut’s subtitling feature, you can create video transcriptions. Shotcut can create, import, edit, export, render, and embed subtitles. Shotcut can also import subtitle formats such as: SRT, VTT, ASS, and SSA.  It can translate from most languages to English, and do Speech to Text subtitling in different languages. To do this it uses Whisper.[2] Shotcut also has a Subtitle burn-in feature, meaning it can embed the subtitles into the video so that they are always visible and permanently a part of the file.

Continue reading →

Lab Notes: Audio Transcription Tools

Posted on by

By Nakiyyah Adams

How do you review hundreds of jail calls? What about 3 months of 24-hour video surveillance on a house? Twenty bodycameras covering  1-2 hours each of a multi-jurisdictional car chase and stop?

Audio transcription tools are one potential answer. These tools can analyze audio and video files and create text searchable transcripts. You can imagine the huge time-saving benefit here—instead of trying to watch or listen to hours and hours of recordings, only some of which might be relevant, a text searchable transcript could be searched using keywords, or even just read quickly in less time than experiencing the recording in real-time.

Continue reading →