Transcribe a long Sony ZV-E1 interview by sending its sound rather than the 4K file.
A 3.5-hour interview filmed on a Sony ZV-E1 comes back as text in about 7 minutes when you upload its audio, a light export or a Google Drive link, up to 10 hours or 5 GB per file. The first 20 minutes are free for a first-time visitor, and the 210 minutes fit the $6 pack of 500 minutes, leaving 290.
Full frame in, plain text out
Sensor size changes the picture; the transcript only ever needs the voices.
Codec choices on the card
The ZV-E1 records in several XAVC flavours, and depending on the one you chose, files may be H.264 or H.265, usually MP4 files under the PRIVATE folder of the card. Whichever it is, the transcript comes from the audio track, so the codec matters only for how big the file is.
Hours of footage, many gigabytes
At 50 Mbps an hour of footage is about 22.5 GB, so even a modest setting puts a 3.5-hour interview near 79 GB. Exported as 16-bit stereo WAV at 48 kHz the sound is about 690 MB an hour, so the whole interview is near 2.4 GB and starts once a pack is on the account; an MP3 export avoids that.
Mic audio from the shoe or the jack
If the guest wore a wireless lav into the camera's mic input, that sound is already inside the clip and the export carries it. If a separate recorder ran beside the camera, upload that file instead; it is usually the cleanest and smallest copy of the conversation.
Shared through Drive
Producers often pass footage around in Google Drive. Put the audio export, or the clip if it is under 5 GB, in a Drive folder with link sharing on and paste the link here; a folder holding several interviews is picked up together.
Interview shoots elsewhere
Long-form interviews are where cinematic footage and slow transcription collide.
✗ What usually happens
The edit waits on the words.
- Masters too large to upload anywhere
- Transcripts limited to short clips
- Paying a typist by the hour
- One interview split across many jobs
- Selects pulled by watching it all again
- Part three of the interview timed from 00:00
✓ Here
One sound file, the whole conversation.
- A single ZV-E1 file up to 10 hours or 5 GB
- Roughly 7 minutes for the whole sit-down
- Google Drive files and folders fetched
- Chapters timed to the original take
- Key quotes naming guest and host
- A free first 20 minutes to check
Sample
A long interview from a full-frame shoot, as delivered.
Lines invented for this page as illustration, quoting no real interview; the timestamps span a 3.5-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
Sony ZV-E1 interviews, answered.
How long does a 3.5-hour ZV-E1 interview take?
About 7 minutes, given roughly 2 minutes per hour of audio. A much longer example, 9.31 hours in 1,033 seconds, is on the public proof page.
What will a run of ZV-E1 interviews cost?
A single 210-minute interview fits the $6 pack of 500 minutes. Nine of them come to 1,890 minutes, inside the $12 pack of 2,000. A first visit also brings 20 free minutes.
Can I upload the file straight from the card?
Only if it is 5 GB or smaller, or 2 GB or smaller before your first pack. A long interview rarely is, so export the audio or a 720p copy; the speech in it is identical.
What if the interview runs past 10 hours?
Split it into two files at a natural break. Anything up to 10 hours stays one file with one set of timestamps.
Does the guest have to speak English?
No. 99 languages are recognised automatically, and a guest who changes language mid-answer is transcribed on the recording's main language.
Which exports, and how private is it?
A single run produces TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. We transcribe on our own servers and never use any recording for training.
Related
Other Sony cameras and interview footage
Send the ZV-E1 interview as sound. The first 20 minutes of that sit-down are free.
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