Transcribe an Opencast lecture recording when your university lets you download it.
An Opencast lecture recording you are permitted to download becomes a transcript in about 3 minutes for a 90-minute lecture, and the first 20 minutes are free. Five such lectures, 450 minutes, fit the $6 pack of 500, and a semester of two 90-minute lectures a week for 14 weeks, 2,520 minutes, sits on the $24 pack of 5,000. WhipScribe has no link to Opencast; it works on the file once you have saved it.
From lecture capture to lecture notes
Opencast records the hall. You still have to study from it.
Downloads are the university's call
Opencast is open-source lecture capture that each university runs and configures itself, so whether a lecture can be downloaded differs from one institution, and one course, to the next. If a download is offered, use it; if it is not, ask the lecturer for the file.
Two videos, one voice
Opencast recordings often pair a presenter camera with a slides or screen track. The lecturer's voice usually travels with the presenter video, so that is the file to upload; check which download carries sound if you are offered several.
Lectures in the local language
European and Asian universities lecture in their own languages. German, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese and Korean are among 99 languages detected automatically, and a lecture that quotes English sources stays on its main language.
A semester of lectures
Two 90-minute lectures a week across 14 weeks are 28 recordings and 2,520 minutes, on the $24 pack of 5,000 minutes. A single course with one weekly lecture, 1,260 minutes, fits the $12 pack.
Studying from a capture recording
The lecture is recorded in full. Finding one derivation in it is the problem.
✗ Studying from the player
Scrubbing a dual-stream video for one slide's explanation.
- Rewinding to catch a spoken definition
- A recording far beyond the Whisper API's 25 MB limit
- Cutting the file to fit a short-clip tool
- Transcripts that restart their timestamps
- No index of what each lecture covered
- Monthly fees for a single semester
✓ Revising from the transcript
Every lecture as text, in order, with times back into the video.
- A 90-minute lecture read in about 3 minutes
- Chapters tracking each part of the lecture
- Terms, names and dates gathered
- Ask the transcript about any topic
- DOCX for exam notes
- SRT or VTT to caption the recording
Sample
A recorded university lecture from a capture system.
This sample is illustrative, written for the page; it does not come from any real lecture. Timestamps place the lines inside a 90-minute recording.
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
Opencast lecture recordings, answered.
How long does a 90-minute lecture take?
About 3 minutes, since an hour of audio takes roughly 2. A double session of 3 hours is ready in about 6.
What does a semester of Opencast lectures cost?
Five 90-minute lectures, 450 minutes, fit the $6 pack of 500. A course with one weekly lecture for 14 weeks, 1,260 minutes, fits the $12 pack of 2,000. Two lectures a week, 2,520 minutes, go on the $24 pack of 5,000. Someone new here gets the first 20 minutes free.
The download is a large video. How big can it be?
One file can be up to 10 hours or 5 GB, and up to 2 GB before your first pack. At a video bitrate of 2.5 Mbps, an hour is 2.5 ÷ 8 × 3,600 = about 1,125 MB, so a 90-minute lecture is roughly 1.7 GB. A format the upload refuses can be converted to MP3 first.
Should I split long lectures?
No. A lecture never comes close to the 10-hour limit, and one file keeps one clock for the whole session.
Does it handle lectures that are not in English?
Yes. 99 languages are detected automatically, German, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese and Korean among them, and the transcript comes back in the lecture's language.
Which exports, and who sees the lecture?
Five formats: TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT, JSON. Lecture recordings sent here are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training. Your university's rules on sharing recordings still apply to the transcript.
Related
More for lecture capture
Download the lecture, then upload it. Twenty minutes, free, to start.
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