Transcribe a long HEVC MP4 without uploading the picture.
An HEVC (H.265) MP4 from a modern phone or camera runs about 4.5 GB an hour at 10 Mbps, so one hour fits under the 5 GB line and two hours usually does not. Upload a file that fits as it is, or pull the audio out first (about 58 MB an hour at 128 kbps); either way it transcribes at about 2 minutes per hour, with the first 20 minutes free.
HEVC, worked out
H.265 makes the picture smaller. The words were only ever in the sound track.
Why HEVC files are smaller
HEVC, also called H.265, often reaches similar picture quality at around half the bitrate of H.264, which is why phones and cameras offer it to save space. Many Android phones and cameras save it in an MP4; an iPhone set to High Efficiency saves it in a MOV. The sound beside it is usually AAC.
Gigabytes per hour, worked out
At 10 Mbps, one hour is 10,000,000 bits ÷ 8 × 3,600 seconds, about 4.5 GB. A 4K clip at 20 Mbps is about 9 GB an hour; a 1080p file at 5 Mbps about 2.25 GB. The AAC audio at 128 kbps is only about 58 MB of each hour.
Where the 5 GB and 10 h lines fall
At 10 Mbps, the 5 GB line comes at about 1 hour 6 minutes, long before the 10-hour one. Before the first pack, files up to 2 GB start straight away; a bigger HEVC file starts once a pack is on the account.
Send the sound, keep the video
Only the audio is transcribed, so extracting it loses nothing for the transcript. Drop the audio file or a video that fits on the upload page; if the upload refuses the file, convert it to MP3 first.
Why long H.265 video gets stuck
Half the size of H.264 is still gigabytes per hour.
✗ Video-sized uploads for a speech job
A single hour of 10 Mbps HEVC is about 180 times the OpenAI Whisper API's documented 25 MB upload limit.
- Uploading gigabytes of picture nobody reads
- Hours lost on a home connection
- Cutting the video into short parts
- A fresh clock in every part
- Re-encoding the whole video first
- No overview of the full recording
✓ Audio out, transcript back
Pull the sound track, upload one small file, and get the transcript on the original timeline.
- About 58 MB per hour at 128 kbps
- A whole recording per file, up to 10 h
- Around 2 minutes per hour of H.265
- Timestamps match the original video
- $6 buys 500 minutes of audio
- Subtitles in SRT and VTT for the clip
Sample
A wedding ceremony filmed on a phone, ninety minutes in.
This is an illustrative sample written for this page, not taken from a real event. Each timestamp points back to the same moment in the HEVC video.
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 HEVC MP4 files, answered.
How long does an HEVC video take to transcribe?
About 2 minutes of work per hour of recording once the file is up. A 3-hour HEVC is ready in roughly 6 minutes; for a large video the upload is the slow part, which is why sending only the audio helps.
What does a 3-hour HEVC recording cost?
A 3-hour HEVC file counts as 180 minutes. After the first 20 free minutes, the $6 pack (500 minutes) transcribes the rest, and 320 minutes stay on the account. A season of ten such recordings, 1,800 minutes, fits the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes.
How large is HEVC per hour?
Bitrate times time: 5 Mbps is about 2.25 GB an hour, 10 Mbps about 4.5 GB, 20 Mbps about 9 GB. Your camera or phone settings decide the rate; the file's properties show it.
My HEVC file is over 5 GB. Is splitting it the answer?
Extracting the audio is usually better than splitting, because the transcript stays one timeline. With ffmpeg: ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -c:a copy audio.m4a keeps the AAC track as it is. Split only if the audio itself runs past 10 hours.
Which languages can the HEVC recording be in?
99, detected automatically from the speech, including Korean, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. Music and crowd noise under a ceremony or event are not transcribed; the speech is.
What do I get back, and is the video kept private?
A brief, chapters with timestamps, quotes with the speakers named, and exports in TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. Videos and audio are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Related
Related pages
Upload the video or its audio. No charge for the first 20 minutes of footage.
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