Transcribe talks and oral histories from a senior centre for the members who missed it.
A talk recorded in a senior centre, typically an hour with questions afterwards, is transcribed at about 2 minutes per audio hour, so a 70-minute talk is text in under 3 minutes. The first 20 minutes are free, and 26 weekly talks of 70 minutes, 1,820 minutes, fit the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes.
Two kinds of recording
Weekly talks for the whole room, and quieter one-to-one sessions where a member tells their story.
The weekly talk
A guest speaker on pensions, local history or gardening, then questions from the floor. If the room has a microphone and speakers, record near a loudspeaker or from the system itself; questions asked without a microphone are the part most likely to be faint, so the speaker repeating them helps everyone.
The memory project
Members interviewed one at a time, usually for an hour or two, about work, family and the town as it was. Eight members at 90 minutes each make 720 minutes, inside the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes with 1,280 left. Names, places and years mentioned are listed alongside the text.
A season of talks, costed
Twenty-six weekly talks of 70 minutes make 1,820 minutes, more than the $6 pack of 500 minutes, so the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes fits with 180 to spare. A single 2.5-hour open day, 150 minutes, fits the $6 pack. Credits never expire between seasons.
From the recorder to here
Phone recordings and recorder files usually upload as they are. Files up to 500 MB go in the box above, larger ones on the upload page, up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file. Export DOCX and set a large font for members who prefer to read the talk on paper.
Why a written copy helps members
Not everyone hears well in a busy hall, and not everyone can come every week.
✗ Talks that disappear
Recorded on a volunteer's phone and never heard again.
- Members who missed the talk
- Questions nobody heard from the back
- Oral histories kept on one phone
- Newsletters written from memory
- Local names spelt three ways
- No record of what the speaker advised
✓ Talks in writing
Each session kept as text for members and the archive.
- 70 minutes back in under 3
- Chapters for the talk and the questions
- Speakers named in the summary
- Names, places and years listed
- 26 talks inside the $12 pack
- Large-print DOCX for reading
Sample
A weekly talk with questions from the floor.
Illustrative lines written for this page; no real centre, speaker or member is represented.
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
- AI chat over the whole 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
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
Bulk pack
$24/5,000 min
83 hours of audio — $0.29 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 5,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
Senior centre recordings: common questions.
How long does a weekly talk take?
About 2 minutes per audio hour, so a 70-minute talk is back in under 3 minutes and a two-hour interview in about 4.
What will a season of talks cost?
Twenty-six talks of 70 minutes, 1,820 minutes, fit the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes. Six talks, 420 minutes, fit the $6 pack of 500 minutes. A full year of 52 talks, 3,640 minutes, fits the $24 pack of 5,000 minutes.
Can we record members' life stories too?
Yes. Ask each member first, and explain who will read the text. Each interview returns chapters, a brief and the names, places and years mentioned.
Questions from the floor were quiet. Will they appear?
Questions spoken near the microphone come through; ones asked from the back without a microphone may be partly missed. Ask the speaker to repeat each question before answering.
Some talks are in another language. Does that work?
99 languages are detected automatically. A talk that moves between two languages is detected on its main one, so check the other passages before printing.
Where are the recordings processed?
Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training. Delete the file and transcript from your Library after saving the text.
Related
More community and oral history pages
Send this week's talk. Seventy minutes read in under three.
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