Transcribe a long MP2 file straight from the radio archive.
A long MP2 file at the usual broadcast bitrates of 192 to 384 kbps takes about 86 to 173 MB per hour, so even a 10-hour logger file stays under 2 GB and uploads before any pack, and it transcribes at about 2 minutes per hour of audio. The first 20 minutes are free, and a 3-hour MP2 talk show needs the $6 pack of 500 minutes for the rest.
MP2, worked out
Broadcast audio is compact enough that the clock, not the file size, sets the limit.
Why stations still have MP2
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II was the working format of radio for decades: playout systems, digital broadcast chains and compliance loggers wrote it because it decodes cheaply and survives many generations of editing. Archives built in that era hold thousands of hours of it, often with the extension .mp2 and sometimes .mpa.
The arithmetic per hour
Multiply bitrate by duration. At 192 kbps an hour is 192,000 bits a second times 3,600 seconds, divided by 8: about 86 MB. At 256 kbps it is 115 MB, and at 384 kbps 173 MB. Ten hours at the top rate is roughly 1.7 GB, still below the 2 GB that uploads before a pack.
Getting the file in
Export the hours you need from the logger or playout system and drop the MP2 on the upload page. If the upload refuses the file, convert it to MP3 first; a free tool such as ffmpeg or Audacity does that without touching the words.
Every segment, searchable
Hours of talk radio come back with a brief of the main points, chapters with timestamps for each segment, the names, numbers and dates that were said, and a chat you can question. Hosts and callers are identified and named in the summary, key quotes and chapters.
Why logger files are hard to use
A day of broadcast audio is easy to keep and slow to find anything in.
✗ Scrubbing through the logger
A compliance logger records everything, and nothing in it is searchable. Finding one interview means listening.
- A day of broadcast with no index
- Players that skip .mp2 in the file picker
- Clip tools that stop after an hour
- Cutting a show into pieces by hand
- Timestamps lost between the pieces
- No written record of what aired
✓ One MP2, one transcript
Upload the export whole and read the show back with every segment marked.
- Up to 10 hours per MP2
- Around 2 minutes of work per hour of audio
- No charge for the opening 20 minutes of a show
- $12 covers 2,000 minutes of archive
- Segments laid out as timed chapters
- Text, Word, caption and JSON files
Sample
A morning phone-in, two hours into the logger file.
An illustrative sample, written for this page rather than taken from any real broadcast; timestamps mark where each exchange sits in a long MP2 export.
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 MP2 files, the common questions.
How long does a long MP2 file take to transcribe?
About 2 minutes per hour of audio after the upload, so a 3-hour show is ready in roughly 6 minutes and a full 10-hour logger export in about 20. Our public test ran 9.31 hours in 1,033 seconds; the figures are on the long-files proof page.
What does a radio archive cost to transcribe?
A 3-hour talk show is 180 minutes and fits the $6 pack of 500 minutes with 320 left. A week of five such shows is 900 minutes, which goes on the $12 pack of 2,000. One full 24-hour logger day is 1,440 minutes, also on the $12 pack, uploaded as three 8-hour files.
How big is an MP2 file per hour?
About 86 MB at 192 kbps, 115 MB at 256 kbps and 173 MB at 384 kbps. Mono speech at 128 kbps is nearer 58 MB. The upload takes one file up to 5 GB, and up to 2 GB before the first pack, so MP2 never comes close.
My logger file is 24 hours long. What do I do?
Cut it into files of 10 hours or less, ideally at the top of an hour so the pieces line up with the schedule, and upload each one. Every part gets its own transcript with timestamps from zero, so name the files by start time.
Which languages can the broadcast be in?
Any of 99 languages, detected automatically, so a station in Swedish, Portuguese or Tagalog needs no setting. A phone-in that moves between English and Tagalog is handled. Music beds, jingles and adverts with songs are not transcribed; the speech is.
What do I download, and is the audio kept private?
Each MP2 transcript downloads in five formats, from plain TXT and Word to SRT and VTT captions and timed JSON. Broadcast files are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training, and you can delete any file and its transcript.
Related
Other long formats
Upload the MP2. Twenty minutes of the show cost nothing.
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