Transcribe a long AVCHD file without uploading 30 GB of video.
Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes, and credits never expire. The camcorder footage itself runs about 8 to 11 GB per hour, so try the file as it is only if it is short, and if the upload refuses it, convert it to MP3 or MP4 with ffmpeg or VLC first.
From camcorder card to transcript
AVCHD was built for Blu-ray playback, not for upload forms. Here is the short way around it.
What records AVCHD
Consumer and prosumer camcorders from Sony, Panasonic and Canon, along with some older compact cameras, write AVCHD. On the card the clips usually sit several folders deep, in a STREAM folder, with names like 00012.MTS; a computer import may turn them into .M2TS files with dates in the name.
Why the video is the problem
AVCHD records at roughly 17 to 24 Mbps, which works out to about 7.6 to 10.8 GB for every hour of footage. A conference session, a ceremony or a long interview filmed on a tripod blows past 5 GB inside the first hour, even though the speech in it would fit in a file the size of a few photos.
Pull the audio in one step
With ffmpeg, the clips of one session can be read in order and turned into a single MP3: ffmpeg -i "concat:00010.MTS|00011.MTS|00012.MTS" -vn -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 96k session.mp3. In VLC, Media then Convert/Save with an audio MP3 profile does the same for one clip; the menu names shift a little between versions.
Upload it once
At 96 kbps an hour of audio is about 43 MB, so 3.5 hours is near 150 MB and fits the box on this page. Anything over 500 MB carries on at the upload page, still up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file. Back come a transcript with timestamps, a brief, chapters and the names, numbers and dates said.
Where camcorder transcripts stall
The footage is enormous, split into pieces, and holds audio some tools skip.
✗ Uploading the footage
Sending AVCHD as video spends hours moving pictures the transcript never reads.
- A 3.5-hour session near 38 GB
- Clips uploaded one by one
- A separate clock for every clip
- Dolby audio a tool may not open
- A night of upload on home internet
- Speeches found only by scrubbing
✓ Sending the sound
One audio file per session keeps the words and drops the weight.
- About 43 MB per audio hour at 96 kbps
- All clips of a session joined in order
- One timeline from first word to last
- Roughly 2 minutes for each hour of sound
- 210 minutes from a pack, 290 left
- SRT and VTT to caption the cut
Sample
A ceremony filmed on a camcorder, sent as audio.
Illustrative lines written for this page, not taken from any real event. Timestamps follow the joined audio.
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 $4 (300 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
$4/300 min
5 hours of audio — $0.80 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 300 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$18/3,000 min
50 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 3,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
Bulk pack
$32/6,000 min
100 hours of audio — $0.32 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 6,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
AVCHD files, answered.
Will the upload take an MTS or M2TS file as it is?
Sometimes, but do not count on it: the box on this page asks for audio, MP4 or WebM, and AVCHD's MPEG transport stream with Dolby audio is not something every browser hands over. If the upload refuses the file, convert it to MP3 or MP4 with ffmpeg or VLC and send that copy. The length, and so the minutes used, stays the same.
How big is an hour of AVCHD?
At the common 24 Mbps setting, about 10.8 GB an hour; at 17 Mbps, about 7.6 GB. Either way a single hour of video can already be over 5 GB. As MP3 at 96 kbps, the same hour is about 43 MB.
My camcorder split one event into many clips. What now?
Many camcorders start a new clip partway through a long take. Join the clips of one session in their numbered order, with ffmpeg's concat input or by laying them end to end in an editor, and export one audio file. Keep each joined file at 10 hours or less.
How long does it take and what does it cost?
About 2 minutes per hour of audio: 3.5 hours is roughly 7 minutes. The opening minutes are a free preview. Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes, and credits never expire.
Do I lose anything by dropping the video?
No. Only the speech is transcribed, so the words and timestamps match the footage. Music, applause and crowd noise are not transcribed in either case.
Languages, exports and privacy?
99 languages are detected automatically. Downloads come as TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Related
Related pages
Pull the audio off the card. The opening minutes of the session are free.
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