Transcribe te reo radio recordings for research and the archive.
A three-hour te reo Māori radio block becomes timestamped text in about 6 minutes, and one file can hold up to 10 hours or 5 GB. The first 20 minutes are free, and the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes then covers eleven three-hour blocks.
Built for hours of broadcast audio
Hours of iwi radio, turned into text a researcher can search.
Long logger files, whole
Broadcast loggers often save audio in long blocks. A block of up to 10 hours or 5 GB goes into upload page as one file, so a morning show, the news bulletins and the afternoon talkback stay in one timeline with one set of timestamps.
Te reo first, English kept
Each file is detected on its main language. A show held mostly in te reo is transcribed as te reo, and the English segments, ads and interviews inside it are kept as they were spoken. Accuracy for te reo trails the major world languages: read the result as a fast first draft, plan one review pass before anything is quoted or published.
Find the segment, not the hour
Chapters with timestamps mark where an interview starts, where the bulletin runs and where callers come on. The list of names, places and dates said on air shows at a glance which broadcast mentions the marae, the event or the year a researcher is after.
A chat over the archive text
Ask the transcript a question such as which guests spoke about land returns, and the answer points back to the timestamp. Speakers who introduce themselves on air are named in the summary, key quotes and chapters.
Why broadcast archives stay unread
Years of radio sit on drives because nobody has the hours to listen.
✗ Listening through the tapes
An archivist can spend a full day finding one interview in a week of broadcasts.
- Hours of listening to find a single segment
- Logger files too big for most upload forms
- Tools that assume every file is English
- Catalogue notes written from memory
- No timestamps to cite in a thesis
- Digitised audio still unsearchable
✓ A text index for every hour
Each broadcast hour becomes a document a researcher can search, cite and check against the audio.
- About 2 minutes per broadcast hour
- Whole logger files, up to 10 h
- Te reo picked up from the audio
- Chapters for each segment
- Names, marae, places and dates listed
- Timestamps to cite and to check
Sample
A broadcast hour, as it comes back.
This sample is illustrative and was written for this page; it is not taken from any real station or broadcast. Labels show the segment, not a presenter.
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
Te reo radio recordings, the common questions.
How long does a three-hour broadcast take?
About 6 minutes. The pace is near 2 minutes per hour of audio, so a full 10-hour logger file takes around 20. Public timings for long files, including 9.31 hours in 1,033 seconds, are on the proof page.
What does a research archive cost to transcribe?
Fifty broadcast hours is 3,000 minutes, which needs the $24 pack of 5,000 minutes (about $0.29 an audio hour) and leaves 2,000 minutes for later batches. A smaller pilot of ten three-hour blocks, 1,800 minutes, fits the $12 pack of 2,000 minutes. Credits never expire, so a project can run across years.
How large can a logger file be?
A logger file may be up to 10 hours or 5 GB, whichever it reaches first. A 10-hour MP3 at 128 kbps is about 576 MB (128 kbps times 36,000 seconds), which fits easily. Before the first pack, uploads reach 2 GB; a file over 2 GB starts once a pack is on the account. Anything longer than 10 hours is uploaded as two files.
Can it handle te reo, English and code-switching in one broadcast?
Yes, te reo Māori is among the 99 languages detected automatically, the file is detected on its main language, and switches into English are handled. Older recordings with tape hiss or phone-line callers come back rougher than studio speech, and waiata and music are not transcribed.
Do we need permission to transcribe the broadcasts?
Work from recordings your project has the right to use, such as a station's own archive or audio supplied under a research agreement. WhipScribe works on the file you upload. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training, and you can delete them afterwards.
Which formats come back for the catalogue?
TXT and DOCX for reading, SRT and VTT for timed captions, and JSON with timestamps for loading into a catalogue or a research database.
Related
More long recordings for archives and research
Start with one broadcast hour. No charge for your first 20 minutes of broadcast.
Transcribe a radio recordingOperated by Neugence Technology Pvt. Ltd. · contact@whipscribe.com · Security · Privacy · Terms