Transcribe a long iPhone camera recording after you bring the file under 5 GB.
A 2-hour talk filmed on an iPhone camera comes back as text in about 4 minutes, and one file can run to 10 hours or 5 GB. The first 20 minutes are free, and the 120 minutes fit the $6 pack of 500 minutes, though 4K footage of an event that long is usually far above 5 GB, so send a 1080p copy, the audio alone or a Google Drive link instead.
From the camera roll to the text
The transcript needs the sound, not the pixels, so the smallest copy of the video works best.
Where the video is
The iPhone camera saves video to the Photos app, and on a Windows PC connected by cable the files appear inside the DCIM folder as MOV files. On the phone itself you can share the video to Files, or upload it straight from the Photos library when this page asks for a file.
Why 4K gets too big
File size is bitrate multiplied by time. Your iPhone's Camera settings show roughly how much space one minute takes at each resolution; if it reads 150 MB a minute, two hours is about 18 GB, more than three times the 5 GB a file may be. At 1080p the same talk can shrink to a few gigabytes.
Three ways under the limit
Record long talks in 1080p rather than 4K. Or, for a video already shot, export a smaller copy or the audio alone in an editor. Or put the video in Google Drive with link sharing on and paste the link here: Drive links need no upload from the phone at all.
What the talk becomes
You get a brief of the thesis and takeaways, chapters with timestamps that match the video, and the names, numbers and dates that were said. The chat over the transcript answers questions such as when the speaker first mentioned the budget, so you can jump to that moment in the clip.
Long phone video elsewhere
A phone shoots video far larger than most transcription tools will take.
✗ What usually happens
The recording is clear; the file is simply too heavy.
- The OpenAI Whisper API refuses anything over 25 MB
- Free tiers that stop well short of 2 hours
- Uploads from a phone that time out halfway
- Cutting a talk into pieces to fit
- Each piece timed from zero again
- Scrubbing the video to find one remark
✓ Here
A smaller copy, or a link, comes back as one document.
- A 5 GB, 10-hour ceiling per video
- About 4 minutes for a 2-hour talk
- Google Drive links fetched for you
- Chapters that match the video timeline
- A free 20-minute look before any pack
- SRT captions for the same clip
Sample
A talk filmed from the audience on a phone, as it comes back.
This sample is illustrative and was written for this page, not taken from a real event. Roles stand in for names, and the timestamps show a 2-hour talk.
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
iPhone camera recordings, the common questions.
How long does a 2-hour iPhone video take?
Roughly 4 minutes; the work runs at about 2 minutes for each hour of sound. The resolution of the video makes no difference to the time because only the speech is read. On the public proof page, a 4.94-hour file finished in 372 seconds.
What does a 2-hour talk cost?
Your first 20 minutes are free on a first visit. The 120 minutes of the talk fit the $6 pack of 500 minutes, which leaves at least 380 for the next few recordings. Credits never expire.
My video is 18 GB. How do I get it under the limit?
A file must be 5 GB or less, and before your first pack, 2 GB or less. Export the audio as MP3, which at 128 kbps is about 58 MB an hour, or a 1080p copy, then upload that. If it already sits in Google Drive, paste the share link.
Should I split a long video into parts?
Only if it runs past 10 hours, which a phone video rarely does. A single file keeps one set of timestamps, so the chapters line up with the original clip.
Which languages does it hear?
99 languages, detected automatically from the audio. A speaker who moves between two languages is transcribed on the main one, and English with Tagalog in the same video is handled.
What do I download, and who sees the video?
Five formats arrive from the one run: TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. Your recording is transcribed on our own servers and is never used for training, and deleting it removes the transcript too.
Related
Other phones and long video
Send the talk from your iPhone. Read how the talk opens, 20 minutes free.
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