Transcribe a long Overcast episode so you can quote it properly.
A long episode you found in Overcast is transcribed from the show's source RSS feed or from the episode's audio file, and a 2.5-hour episode is text in about 5 minutes. The first 20 minutes are free, and the $6 pack of 500 minutes covers it with 350 minutes to spare. The overcast.fm page is a place to listen; the feed is the place to start.
Overcast, then the source
Overcast reads a feed. Paste the same feed here and the episode becomes a source you can cite.
The feed, not the overcast.fm page
Overcast share links open a web page for the episode. Paste the show's RSS feed instead, the same source Overcast subscribes to; the show's website or its host's page usually publishes the address.
Quoting a long episode accurately
Researchers, writers and students who cite a podcast need the exact words and the minute they were said. The transcript carries timestamps, so a quote can be checked against the audio in seconds rather than after three replays.
When the show has no public feed
Members-only and private feeds are personal to the subscriber. In that case download the episode wherever the show offers it, or ask the show for the file, then upload it; files up to 2 GB go in before a pack.
Questions the episode answers
Beyond the text you get a brief with the thesis and takeaways, timestamped chapters, the names, numbers and dates said, and a list of the questions the episode answers. The people talking are named in the summary, key quotes and chapters.
Why long episodes are hard to cite
A podcast is a source. Without the text, it is a hard one to quote.
✗ Citing from memory
Paraphrase creeps in when the only record is audio.
- Quotes retyped after three replays
- Timestamps guessed to the nearest minute
- Playback speed that loses your place
- No text to search for a name
- Notes split between phone and laptop
- Hours of listening for one passage
✓ A source you can check
The episode as searchable text, timestamped, with the speakers named in the brief.
- 2.5 hours of episode in about 5 minutes
- The first 20 minutes free to test the quality
- Timestamps in the text and the chapters
- A DOCX to annotate beside the audio
- Ten episodes of research on the $12 pack
- Episodes kept out of any model training
Sample
A long interview episode, ready to quote.
This sample is illustrative: it was written for this page, not taken from a real Overcast episode. The timestamps fall inside a two-and-a-half-hour conversation.
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
Overcast episodes, the common questions.
How long does a 2.5-hour episode take to transcribe?
Roughly 5 minutes, at about 2 minutes per hour of audio. Longer runs scale the same way: 9.31 hours finished in 1,033 seconds in the published timings at /proof/long-files.
What does it cost to transcribe a series for research?
One 2.5-hour episode is 150 minutes on the $6 pack of 500. Ten such episodes are 1,500 minutes, on the $12 pack of 2,000 with 500 left. Thirty of them are 4,500 minutes, which needs the $24 pack of 5,000.
Why not just paste the Overcast link?
The overcast.fm address is a listening page, and it is not one of the link types we fetch. Podcast and RSS feeds, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, Kick and Google Drive links are. The show's feed gives the same episode Overcast plays.
How large is a long episode, and must I split it?
A 2.5-hour MP3 at 96 kbps is about 108 MB (96,000 bits per second × 9,000 seconds ÷ 8). One file can be up to 10 hours or 5 GB, so no episode under 10 hours needs splitting; anything longer goes in as two files.
Can it handle a podcast in Swedish or Japanese?
Yes. 99 languages are detected automatically, Swedish and Japanese among them. If the conversation switches language, it is detected on its main language and the switches are handled. Music beds and sound effects are not transcribed.
What formats come out, and who sees the episode?
An Overcast find exports as TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. An episode fetched from its feed is transcribed on our own servers and is never used for training.
Related
More for podcast listeners and researchers
Paste the source feed. Quote it with the minute attached.
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