Video Transcriber: Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok

🎙️ Video Transcriber: Turn Any Video Into Text Using Speech-to-Text

Convert social videos into clean, timestamped transcripts in seconds. Video Transcriber uses speech-to-text to capture every spoken word even when videos have no subtitles or captions.

Powered by the speech‑to‑text engine from VidNavigator, it’s fast, accurate, and production‑ready. Works with Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), TikTok, Dailymotion, Vimeo, and Loom.

💰 $0.035 per video · 🌍 99+ languages · 🎯 Timestamped segments

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✨ Why Use Video Transcriber for Speech-to-Text?

Most transcript tools rely on subtitle tracks, if a video has no captions, they return nothing. Video Transcriber solves this by converting actual speech into text.

• Speech-to-text, not subtitles: Captures speech even when videos have no captions
• Multi-platform support: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), TikTok, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Loom
• Instagram carousel support: Automatically transcribes all videos in carousel posts, each video becomes a separate result
• 99+ languages: Works with most spoken languages
• Timestamped segments: Every word comes with precise start/end times
• Rich video metadata: Titles, descriptions, thumbnails, duration, views, likes, and more
• LLM-ready output: Pre-cleaned data ideal for RAG pipelines, NLP, sentiment analysis, or any AI workflow

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📊 What Data Can You Extract With Video Transcriber?

Field	Description
title	Video title
description	Video description
thumbnail	Thumbnail image URL
url	Original video URL
channel	Creator or channel name
duration	Video length in seconds
views	View count
likes	Like count
published_date	Publish date
keywords	Associated keywords
transcript	Timestamped segments with start/end times

You can download the dataset extracted by Video Transcriber in various formats such as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML directly from the Apify dashboard.

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🔗 Supported Video Platforms

Platform	Notes
Instagram	Full support including carousel posts (each video transcribed separately)
X (Twitter)	Paste the tweet URL containing the video
TikTok	Public videos
Facebook	Public videos
Dailymotion	Full support
Vimeo	Full support
Loom	Full support

The tool may also work on other platforms not listed here, though they have not been as thoroughly tested.

Need caption-based extraction instead of speech-to-text? Check our companion actor: Video Transcript Scraper.

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📸 Instagram Carousel Posts

When you provide an Instagram carousel post URL (a post containing multiple videos/images), the actor automatically transcribes all videos in the carousel:

• Each video in the carousel is processed separately
• Each video becomes a separate result in the dataset
• Images in the carousel are skipped (only videos are transcribed)
• Failed transcriptions are logged but don't stop other videos from being processed

Example: A carousel post with 4 videos produces 4 separate dataset entries. This is billed per result, so a carousel with 4 videos counts as 4 results.

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🛠️ How To Transcribe Videos Using Video Transcriber

1. Go to Video Transcriber on Apify
2. Click "Try for free"
3. Paste one or more public video URLs into the video_urls field, you can mix platforms in a single run
4. Click "Start" and wait for the run to finish
5. Download your transcripts in JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML from the dataset tab

Run it your way

Because this is an Apify Actor, you also get:

• API access: Call it programmatically from any language — check the API tab for ready-made code examples
• Scheduling: Set up recurring runs to transcribe new content automatically
• Integrations: Connect to Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, webhooks, and more
• Monitoring: Track run history, costs, and results from the Apify dashboard

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📥 Input Example

Batch input (recommended)

{
  "video_urls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_L9MBOvb3q",
    "https://x.com/user/status/1234567890",
    "https://www.tiktok.com/@user/video/1234567890"
  ]
}

The actor processes up to 2 videos concurrently. Since speech-to-text is compute-intensive, this keeps quality high while still processing batches efficiently.

Note: The video_url field (singular) still works for backward compatibility but is deprecated. Use video_urls instead.

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📤 Output Example

{
  "status": "success",
  "data": {
    "video_info": {
      "title": "A Reel Interesting Video",
      "description": "An example description for the video.",
      "thumbnail": "https://example.com/thumbnail.jpg",
      "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_L9MBOvb3q",
      "channel": "Example Creator",
      "duration": 58.5,
      "views": 123456,
      "likes": 7890,
      "published_date": "2024-07-01",
      "keywords": ["example", "social media", "video"]
    },
    "transcript": [
      { "text": "Hello, world!", "start": 0.0, "end": 1.5 },
      { "text": "Welcome to our channel.", "start": 1.5, "end": 3.0 }
    ]
  }
}

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🚀 Quick Start Code Examples

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/invideoiq~video-transcriber/run-sync?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"video_urls": ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_L9MBOvb3q"]}'

Python

import requests, json

url = "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/invideoiq~video-transcriber/run-sync?token=YOUR_TOKEN"
data = {"video_urls": ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_L9MBOvb3q"]}
res = requests.post(url, json=data)
print(json.dumps(res.json(), indent=2, ensure_ascii=False))

JavaScript

fetch("https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/invideoiq~video-transcriber/run-sync?token=YOUR_TOKEN", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({ video_urls: ["https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_L9MBOvb3q"] })
})
  .then(r => r.json())
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

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💰 How Much Does Video Transcription Cost?

$35 per 1,000 results (pay per result — you are not charged for Apify platform usage, only a fixed price per transcription event).

Scenario	Cost
1 video	~$0.035
100 videos	~$3.50
1,000 videos	$35.00
Instagram carousel with 4 videos	~$0.14 (4 results)

On the Apify free plan, you get $5 of platform usage credits per month — enough to test the actor and transcribe over 100 videos before committing to a paid plan.

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📈 Use Cases for Video Transcription

• RAG pipelines and AI agents — Feed video transcripts into retrieval-augmented generation systems for LLM-powered search and Q&A
• Content repurposing — Turn Instagram Reels, TikToks, and tweets into blog posts, newsletters, or social threads
• Accessibility and compliance — Generate text versions of video content for accessibility requirements
• Market research — Monitor what competitors and influencers say across social platforms at scale
• Media monitoring — Track brand mentions across video platforms
• Dataset building — Build training datasets from spoken video content across multiple platforms
• Sentiment analysis — Process transcripts through NLP pipelines for opinion mining and sentiment tracking

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❓ FAQ

Is video transcription legal?

This actor processes publicly available video content and does not extract private user data such as email addresses, gender, or location — only information that users have chosen to share publicly. However, results may contain personal data. Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not extract personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers.

What if a video has no speech?

Some videos contain minimal or no spoken words (e.g., music-only videos). In these cases, the transcript will be empty or very short. This is expected behavior.

Why is a video URL returning an error?

Make sure the URL is a direct, public video link. Private, geo-restricted, or login-protected content cannot be transcribed. Use the video_urls array format (not the deprecated singular video_url field).

What languages does Video Transcriber support?

The speech-to-text engine supports 99+ languages and automatically detects the spoken language.

What is the difference between Video Transcriber and Video Transcript Scraper?

Video Transcriber uses speech-to-text to generate transcripts, it works even when videos have no subtitles. Video Transcript Scraper extracts existing subtitle tracks from videos — it's faster and cheaper but only works when captions are already available.

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🔗 Related Actors

Need caption-based extraction, metadata retrieval, or AI-powered video intelligence? Check the rest of the suite:

• Video Transcript Extractor — Pay per result, $10/1,000 results. Best when the video already has captions and you want transcript + rich metadata.
• Video Transcript Scraper — Rental model, $20/month + usage. Same caption-based transcript retrieval under a rental plan.
• AI Video Data Extractor — AI-powered structured data extraction. Define a JSON schema and get back structured data from any video.

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💬 Support

Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue and we'll get back to you.

Need a custom workflow or integration? Reach out through the Issues tab — we're happy to help tailor the actor to your use case.