Transcribe a recording made in a council chamber from the gavel to adjournment.
A council meeting of three to six hours is transcribed at about 2 minutes per audio hour, so a five-hour session comes back in roughly 10 minutes, from an uploaded file or the meeting's YouTube stream. The first 20 minutes are free, and five hours use 300 of the 500 minutes in a $6 pack. A chamber has a microphone at every seat on the dais and one at the podium, and that shapes what the transcript holds.
What a chamber does to audio
A mic at every seat, one at the podium, and members who forget to lean in.
The dais and the podium
Members speak into seat microphones and the public speaks at a podium, so most of the meeting reaches a microphone directly. A member who turns away, or speaks with the mic switched off, comes back partial or not at all.
Public comment
Speakers at public comment usually give their name at the podium and have a few minutes each. The transcript keeps each comment at its timestamp, and a chapter marks where public comment opens and closes.
From the stream link
Many chambers stream to YouTube; paste the link to the archived stream and nothing needs downloading. Stream recordings longer than 6 hours begin once a pack is on the account. The gavel, applause and recess music are not transcribed; the speech is.
A year of meetings
Twelve monthly meetings of four hours are 2,880 minutes, more than the $12 pack holds, so they sit on the $24 pack of 5,000 minutes. Twice-monthly meetings of three hours come to 4,320 minutes, still inside that pack.
Why council recordings go unread
The video is public. The one vote people ask about is buried at hour four.
✗ Searching the video
Residents, reporters and clerks all end up scrubbing the same long stream.
- Scrubbing a five-hour stream for one vote
- Platform captions with no chapters
- Minutes that summarize but never quote
- Public comments lost after the meeting
- Tools that stop at a one-hour file
- Downloading a stream just to upload it
✓ Searching the text
Every agenda item, motion and comment, findable by word or by minute.
- Paste the stream link
- Ten hours or 5 GB in a single upload
- Chapters per agenda item
- Motions, votes and figures listed
- Members named in quotes and chapters
- DOCX for the clerk, SRT for the video
Sample
A council meeting, from roll call to the vote.
This sample is illustrative and written for this page; it is not from a real council, city or resident. Timestamps place lines in a five-hour meeting.
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
Council chamber recordings, answered.
How long until a five-hour council meeting is text?
About 10 minutes, and a three-hour meeting about 6. The transcript is kept in your Library once it is done.
What does a council meeting cost?
A five-hour meeting is 300 minutes on the $6 pack of 500. The first 20 minutes of your first recording are free, and the pack transcribes the rest from where that preview ended. A year of monthly four-hour meetings fits the $24 pack of 5,000 minutes.
Can I paste the YouTube link of the meeting stream?
Yes. Archived YouTube streams, Vimeo links and Google Drive share links all work without an upload. A stream past the 6-hour mark waits for a pack on the account before it starts.
The meeting video is bigger than 5 GB. What now?
Paste the stream link instead, or export the audio, which is a fraction of the size. Uploaded files can be up to 10 hours or 5 GB; before the first pack, the upload limit is 2 GB.
Which languages work?
99 languages, detected automatically. A meeting held mainly in English is transcribed in English; a public comment given in Spanish inside that meeting may come back less cleanly, so check it at its timestamp.
What can I export, and who sees the audio?
The meeting exports as TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Related
Other public meetings
Send the meeting. Read the opening 20 minutes free.
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