Transcribe a recording made in a courtroom as a working transcript you can search.
Audio of a hearing or a trial day, recorded by the court or by counsel, is transcribed at about 2 minutes per audio hour, so five hours come back in roughly 10 minutes. The first 20 minutes are free, and a five-hour day uses 300 of the 500 minutes in a $6 pack. A courtroom is wired for a few fixed microphones, and below is what that means for the transcript you get.
What a courtroom does to audio
Microphones at the bench, the witness stand and counsel tables, and long silences between them.
Fixed microphones
Courtroom systems put microphones where people are expected to speak. Speech at the bench, the witness stand and the lectern comes through well; someone who stands away from a microphone, or talks over another person, may come back partial.
Sidebars and pauses
Sidebars are often masked or not recorded at all, and long pauses while exhibits are handed up are just silence. Neither produces text, and the timestamps keep the transcript aligned with the audio on either side.
Find the testimony
Chapters follow the day's turns: openings, each witness, cross-examination, rulings. The names, dates and figures said in the room are listed with their timestamps, so a figure from the afternoon is found without replaying it.
A multi-day trial
Five trial days of six hours are 1,800 minutes and fit the $12 pack of 2,000. Ten such days come to 3,600 minutes and sit on the $24 pack of 5,000. Credits do not expire between hearings.
Why a working transcript helps
Waiting on the official record leaves hours of audio you cannot search.
✗ Working from audio alone
Until an official transcript arrives, the only way to check what a witness said is to listen again.
- Hours of replay for a single answer
- Notes from counsel table that miss words
- Audio files too large for short-clip tools
- A 25 MB ceiling on the Whisper API
- No list of the dates and figures mentioned
- No index of when each witness testified
✓ Working from a searchable draft
Search the text, then listen at the timestamp before relying on it.
- About 10 minutes for five hours
- Timestamps on every line
- A chapter per witness or phase
- Names, dates and figures listed
- Witnesses and counsel named in the key quotes
- DOCX to annotate, JSON for review tools
Sample
A hearing, from appearances to a ruling.
This sample is illustrative and written for this page; it is not from any real case, court or person. Timestamps place lines in a five-hour 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
Courtroom recordings, the questions.
How long does a five-hour hearing take to transcribe?
Close to 10 minutes; each audio hour takes about 2. A full trial day of seven hours takes about 14.
Can this replace the official transcript?
No. This is an AI transcript with timestamps for working from: not a certified court transcript, not a substitute for a court reporter, and not legal advice. Use it to prepare, review and find testimony, and rely on the official record where one is required.
What does a trial day cost?
A six-hour day is 360 minutes on the $6 pack of 500. A first-time visitor gets the first 20 minutes free, and the pack transcribes the rest from where the preview ended. A full week of trial days belongs on the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes.
The audio came as one large file. Will it upload?
One file can run 10 hours or 5 GB. Until a pack is bought the upload limit is 2 GB, and anything bigger begins after the purchase. A day longer than 10 hours goes in as two files, split at a recess.
What about testimony through an interpreter?
99 languages are detected automatically. A hearing is detected on its main language, so interpreted passages in a second language may come back less cleanly; check them at the timestamp against the audio.
Which exports are there, and who can access the recording?
Exports are TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training. Remove the recording and its transcript once the matter no longer needs them.
Related
Related legal recordings
Send the hearing audio. Review the opening 20 minutes free.
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