The Ultimate Guide to Audio-Based Text Extraction Techniques (2024 Outlook)

Top 7 Converting Audio to Text Tools in 2024

Benjamin Arango

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

The process of making a video has always been painstakingly long, and even though digital cameras and video editing apps that emerged in the last couple of decades have made this process somewhat easier, creating captions for videos you share online is still a time-consuming endeavor. Accessibility and better retrievability by search engines are among the most common reasons why video content producers choose to add captions to the videos they share on social media and video hosting platforms. If you are looking for a way to save some time on creating subtitles for your videos you’ve come to the right place because in this article we are going to take you through some of the best speech to text platforms that enable you to generate captions in just a few minutes.

Converting Audio to Text

Before we proceed any further we would like to note that the platforms and apps we featured in this article can only help you generate a subtitle file and that you are going to have to use a video editing software or an online subtitling platform to add that file to a video. Here are some of the best options for converting audio to text in 2024.

1. IBM Watson Speech to Text

Price: Free trial, different subscription plans available

Watson was initially created to answer questions on a popular quiz show called Jeopardy, and over time IBM developed a cloud-based version of the software that turns audio into text. The speech to text functionality is just one out of many IBM’s Watson offers as you can also use it for machine learning or data analysis among numerous other things. You can create an account on IBM cloud for free, but if you decide to use this platform on a constant basis, then you will have to choose one of the available subscription plans.

Turning speech into text with Watson is easy, as you just have to pick a voice model, upload the audio file you saved in MP3, MPEG, wav, flac or opus file format and choose the keywords you’d like Watson to spot. Alternatively, you can use this platform to record audio files you’d like to convert to text, but you should keep in mind that Watson only supports French, German, Arabic, English, Korean, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Mandarin, French and Japanese languages.

2. Sonix

Price: Free trial, subscription plans start from $17.25 per month

This feature-rich platform is designed to help storytellers tell their stories. You can either upload audio or a video file and Sonix will generate a transcript of it in a remarkably short period of time, so you can transcribe a 30-minute audio file in less than five minutes. Transcriptions Sonix generates are not always a hundred percent accurate, but you can edit each word that this speech to text platform has generated in its Audio-Text editor.

Moreover, the platform is equipped with a video player so you can see your videos next to the transcript, which can be quite useful if you are trying to correct the misspellings and other mistakes. The best part is that Sonix has Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Audition integration, so you can add markers, metadata, captions or make rough cuts on both audio and video files you use in your projects.

3. Amber Script

Price: Free trial available, subscription plans start at $6 per hour of uploaded audio

Regardless of the pricing plan you choose, Amber Script lets you create text from audio files in 29 different languages. In addition, some pricing plans allow you to create text from both audio and video files, so you can easily make subtitles for your videos. Simply upload the file to Amber Script and the platform will generate the text for you. The text may not be entirely accurate, but you can easily make all corrections from the Amber Script’s text editor that offers speaker distinction and timestamp features. In case you don’t want to edit the text by yourself, you can choose a subscription plan that guarantees a 100% accuracy, as well as other advanced options. You can export the text in a variety of file formats, including commonly used text file formats such as SRT, json or docx, and use it for a wide array of purposes just minutes after you’ve transformed an audio file into text.

4. 360Converter

Price: Free

This free online converter lets you turn YouTube or any other type of video or audio file to text for free. You can upload a file directly from your computer, use a video’s URL if it is stored online or import it from personal cloud storage services like Dropbox or Google Drive. Currently, you can only transcribe video and audio files that are in English, French, Hindi and Chinese languages which can limit your options if the text you’d like to generate is in another language. Keep in mind that you are going to have to specify the start and end points of the transcription which allows you to create text from only a portion of the video or audio file. Once the conversion is completed, you will have to wait for your request to be processed before you can download the text the platform generated for you.

5. Sobolsoft MP3 Speech to Text Converter Software

Price: $19.99

Compatibility: Windows

If you are looking for a reliable speech to text software you can use on your PC, then Sobolsoft’s MP3 Speech to Text Converter software is probably one of the best options you can find on the market. The software is easy to use, as you just have to select the audio files you’d like to transcribe and hit the Start Converting button. All the text the software generates will be displayed in the Results window where you can edit it, copy it to clipboard or save it as a text file. However, this software doesn’t provide support for video files, which means that you can’t use it to transcribe files that are saved in MP4, AVI, MOV or any other of the popular video file formats. You can try the Sobolsoft’s MP3 Speech to Text Converter for free and decide if you want to purchase the license to use the software without any restrictions.

6. InqScribe

Price: $99 for an individual license

Compatibility: Windows, macOS

Even though you can’t generate text automatically with InqScribe, this app for PC and Mac computers is still one of the best ways to create subtitles for your videos or transcripts of audio files. The software offers support for a large number of languages so you can use several different languages in the same document. Simply add a video or an audio file to the software’s media window and start typing your transcript. You can also add timecodes wherever you want in the text, which makes InqScribe perfectly suited for the production of subtitle files you can easily add to the videos you share online. The software lets you export the workflow and use it Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro to add subtitles to your projects before you export them as video files.

7. GoSubtitle

Price: Free trial available, subscription plans start at $0,05 per minute

You can create a subtitle file in just four easy steps with the GoSubtitle online platform. In case you opt to use the free version of GoSubtitle you won’t be able to upload files that are larger than 500 MB, but if you decide to purchase one of the available subscription plans you will be able to upload files that have up to 5GB. Once you upload the video to the platform, you can proceed to select the source and destination languages and subtitle formats. GoSubtitle offers support for more than 90 languages and it lets you choose from four different subtitle formats including srt or vtt. You can also use the subtitle editor, if you would like to adjust the subtitles the platform created automatically and sync them perfectly with your video. The accuracy of the text GoSubtitle platform generates depends on a number of factors, and you should check the subtitles before you add them to your video.

Converting Audio to Text With a Smartphone

Speech to text apps for Androids and iPhones can help you generate transcriptions of your audio and video files. Open an app like Speechnotes on your Android device and play the file you’d like to transcribe on your computer to start converting speech into text. Just keep in mind that the text files you create in this way can’t be easily linked to their sources, so if you are looking for a quick way to generate subtitles for your videos, then some of the software products and online platforms we featured in this article are a much better option.

Conclusion

The process of converting speech into text doesn’t necessarily have to be complicated. The online and computer-based speech to text apps can help you create transcriptions quickly, even though the results you will get may not be always entirely accurate. What is your favorite method of converting speech to text? Leave a comment, and let us know.

Benjamin Arango

Benjamin Arango is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Benjamin Arango

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