Transcribe a long AU file out of the old Unix archive.
A long AU file runs about 29 MB per hour when it holds 8 kHz mu-law audio and about 635 MB per hour as 16-bit stereo at 44.1 kHz, so the first stays far under every limit while the second reaches 5 GB near 7.9 hours. It transcribes at about 2 minutes per hour of audio; the first 20 minutes are free and a 4-hour seminar fits the $6 pack of 500 minutes.
AU, worked out
The same three letters can mean a few megabytes or most of a gigabyte an hour.
A format older than the web
The AU format, also saved as .snd, came from Sun and NeXT workstations. It was the default sound file on many Unix systems, and Java's built-in audio classes read it, so university servers, lab recordings and early web archives are full of it. Inside is usually mu-law or plain PCM audio.
Check the encoding first
Telephone-style mu-law at 8 kHz is 64 kbps, about 29 MB an hour, so ten hours is under 300 MB. Uncompressed 16-bit stereo at 44.1 kHz is 1,411 kbps, about 635 MB an hour: 2 GB arrives near 3.2 hours and 5 GB near 7.9. Above 2 GB, an AU begins once the account holds a pack.
If the header confuses the upload
Drop the file on the upload page. AU is rare enough today that some pickers will not show it; if the upload refuses the file, convert it to MP3 first. sox, ffmpeg and Audacity all read AU, mu-law included.
Hours of archive, indexed
A long seminar or interview comes back with a brief of its argument, chapters with timestamps, the names, numbers and dates that came up, and the questions it answers. Presenters and discussants are identified and named in the summary, key quotes and chapters.
Why AU archives are hard to reach
The recordings outlived the machines that made them.
✗ A file from another era
Modern apps rarely list .au, and a long uncompressed one is gigabytes most tools refuse.
- File pickers that ignore .au and .snd
- Mu-law audio mistaken for a corrupt file
- Uncompressed hours far over upload caps
- Splitting a seminar to get it accepted
- A fresh clock in every piece
- No overview of a whole recording
✓ The archive, transcribed
One AU file, or its MP3, becomes one transcript.
- 10 hours or 5 GB per file
- Close to 2 minutes of work per hour
- The first 20 minutes, no charge
- $12 for 2,000 minutes across a collection
- Chapters across the full seminar
- TXT and DOCX for reading, SRT and VTT for captions
Sample
A recorded research seminar, from a departmental server.
An illustration written for this page, not a recording from any real department. The timestamps show where each remark falls in a long AU file.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $6 (500 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$6/500 min
8 hours of audio — $0.72 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 500 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$12/2,000 min
33 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 2,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- All export formats
- Unlimited AI chat per transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Priority queue
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Long AU files, the common questions.
How long does a long AU file take to transcribe?
Close to 2 minutes per hour of audio, so a 4-hour seminar is ready in about 8 minutes. A large uncompressed AU spends longer uploading than processing; converting it to MP3 shortens the upload a great deal.
What does an archive of AU recordings cost?
A 4-hour seminar is 240 minutes on the $6 pack of 500. Thirty hours of departmental recordings is 1,800 minutes, which fits the $12 pack of 2,000; a larger collection of 70 hours, 4,200 minutes, goes on the $24 pack of 5,000.
How big is an AU file per hour?
It depends on what is inside. 8 kHz mu-law is about 29 MB an hour. 16-bit mono at 22.05 kHz is about 159 MB. 16-bit stereo at 44.1 kHz is about 635 MB. A tool such as sox shows the encoding with a single command.
My uncompressed AU is over 5 GB. What then?
Convert it to MP3, which takes an hour to roughly 58 MB at 128 kbps, then upload. If the recording itself runs past 10 hours, split it into two files at a pause and upload each.
Which languages work on AU recordings?
Any of 99, detected automatically, Korean, Swedish and Zulu among them. An interview that switches languages is detected on its main language.
Which exports are there, and is the archive kept private?
Each transcript downloads as TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT or JSON. Archive recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Related
Other archive formats
Upload the AU file. A first 20 minutes of the seminar, free.
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