How to convert a video to text

Most video files carry an audio track alongside the pictures. Transcription reads that track and ignores the rest, which is why converting a video to text is the same job as converting a recording to text, and why the file size on disk tells you little about how long it takes.

Short answer: Import the video into a transcription app the same way you would import audio. Nothing needs converting first. You get back text with timestamps, and can export it as plain text, a document, or a subtitle file.

What you can import

Common containers work: .mp4, .mov, .m4v, and the usual audio formats. The requirement is a recognised audio or video type with an audio track the app can extract, so being able to play a file is a good sign rather than a guarantee.

There are two real limits.

• Three hours per file. Longer than that and you split it first.
• The audio has to exist. A screen recording made without audio produces an empty transcript, which sounds obvious and is a surprisingly common way to waste ten minutes.

Why you do not need a converter first

Search results for this are full of tools that convert MP4 to MP3 before transcribing. That step is unnecessary. The transcription app extracts the audio itself. Converting first costs you time and one generation of quality, and buys nothing.

A separate conversion is usually unnecessary. The exception is size: over a slow connection, extracting the audio first means a much smaller upload. Pulling an audio track out can be lossless, though re-encoding it to another compressed format can cost a little quality.

Getting the text out

Once the transcript exists:

1. Open AI Transcribe and import the video.
2. Wait for processing. Length and connection speed decide how long.
3. The transcript arrives with timestamps, split into speaker turns.
4. Export it. Text, PDF, Word and SRT subtitles on both the iPhone and the Mac, with Markdown and VTT added on the Mac.

If you want subtitles rather than a document, export SRT, which is the format every video editor and platform understands. What an SRT file contains covers that side.

If the video is on YouTube

Check YouTube's own transcript first. It is free and already there for most videos. The YouTube route covers when it is enough and when it is not.

Common questions

Does the video quality matter? No. Only the audio is read. A 4K video and a 480p copy of the same recording transcribe identically.

What about a video with several speakers? Speakers are separated into turns automatically. The transcript cannot know their names, so it labels them Speaker A and Speaker B until you rename them.

Can I transcribe a video in another language? Yes, 32 languages with automatic detection. You do not have to tell it which language to expect.

What if the file is longer than three hours? Split it. Most video editors export a section without re-encoding the whole file.