# Fast Audio & Video Transcriber (`ozwstone/transcriber-adapter`) Actor

Transcribe direct audio and video URLs into multilingual text and timestamped segments. Fast GPU-powered speech-to-text with automatic language detection and simple per-minute pricing.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/ozwstone/transcriber-adapter.md
- **Developed by:** [ozwstone](https://apify.com/ozwstone) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Developer tools, Videos
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $12.00 / 1,000 transcription minutes

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Fast Audio & Video Transcriber

Turn a direct audio or video file URL into multilingual text, timestamped segments, SRT, and WebVTT. This is a simple speech-to-text / transcription API for automation: GPU-powered Whisper transcription, automatic language detection, and JSON output. No external transcription API key is required.

### What it does

Give the Actor a **direct downloadable HTTPS media URL**. It returns:

- a full transcript (audio to text / video to text)
- detected language
- timestamped segments
- an SRT subtitle track
- a WebVTT subtitle track

Video files are transcribed from their audio track. This version does **not** scrape YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or other HTML/player pages.

### Pricing

Pay per event: **$0.012 per started audio minute**.

`charged_minutes = ceil(audio_duration_seconds / 60)`

| Duration | Charged minutes | Price |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 10 minutes | 10 | $0.12 |
| 30 minutes | 30 | $0.36 |
| 1 hour / 60 minutes | 60 | $0.72 |
| 2 hours / 120 minutes | 120 | $1.44 |
| 1,000 minutes | 1,000 | $12.00 |

There is no charge for unsuccessful transcription events. No per-file fee, no subtitle fee, and no language-detection fee. Apify platform usage is included in this event price.

### Input

`mediaUrl` must be a publicly downloadable HTTPS URL that points **directly** to an audio or video file (for example a public S3 object, a presigned HTTPS URL, a CDN file, a podcast MP3, or an MP4).

```json
{
  "mediaUrl": "https://example.com/audio.mp3"
}
```

Optional:

```json
{
  "mediaUrl": "https://example.com/audio.mp3",
  "language": "en",
  "maxAudioMinutes": 120
}
```

Leave `language` empty for automatic multilingual detection. `maxAudioMinutes` defaults to 120 and cannot exceed 120.

### Supported formats

Audio: `mp3`, `wav`, `m4a`, `aac`, `ogg`, `flac`\
Video: `mp4`, `mov`, `webm`, `mkv`

Actual support depends on media decoding.

### Output

Each successful run stores one Dataset item and the same object in Actor OUTPUT:

```json
{
  "id": "c2f1a0b4-9c3e-4d21-9a10-4b2c8e7f1d90",
  "source": { "url": "https://example.com/audio.mp3" },
  "model": "whisper-turbo",
  "language": "en",
  "languageProbability": 0.99,
  "durationSeconds": 61.2,
  "chargedMinutes": 2,
  "processingSeconds": 1.4,
  "text": "…",
  "segments": [{ "start": 0.0, "end": 2.4, "text": "…" }],
  "srt": "1\n00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,400\n…\n",
  "vtt": "WEBVTT\n\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.400\n…\n"
}
```

Use the text, timestamps, segments, SRT, and WebVTT together. Signed URL query strings are stripped from `source.url`.

### Use cases

Podcasts, interviews, meetings, lectures, videos, subtitle generator workflows, searchable archives, RAG / LLM pipelines, content analysis, and media automation.

### API usage

Call the Actor through Apify. Never put a real token in source control.

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("ozwstone/transcriber-adapter").call(
    run_input={"mediaUrl": "https://example.com/audio.mp3"}
)
item = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items[0]
print(item["text"])
```

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/ozwstone~transcriber-adapter/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mediaUrl":"https://example.com/audio.mp3"}'
```

### Limits

- Direct media URLs only
- HTTPS only
- Maximum 120 audio minutes per run
- No YouTube / TikTok / Instagram page URLs yet
- No speaker diarization yet
- No translation yet
- No file uploads through this Actor

### Privacy & security

Media is processed for transcription. Backend temporary files are deleted after the job. Signed URL query strings and fragments are not written to results or logs. You must have the right to process submitted media. This README does not claim GDPR, HIPAA, or other certifications.

# Actor input Schema

## `mediaUrl` (type: `string`):

A publicly downloadable HTTPS URL pointing directly to an audio or video file (not a YouTube/TikTok/Instagram page). Example: https://example.com/interview.mp3

## `language` (type: `string`):

Leave empty for automatic language detection. Optionally provide a language code such as en, tr, de, fr, es.

## `maxAudioMinutes` (type: `integer`):

Reject media longer than this many started minutes before transcription. Default 120. Maximum 120.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mediaUrl": "https://example.com/interview.mp3",
  "language": "",
  "maxAudioMinutes": 120
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `id` (type: `string`):

No description

## `language` (type: `string`):

No description

## `durationSeconds` (type: `string`):

No description

## `chargedMinutes` (type: `string`):

No description

## `billableMinutes` (type: `string`):

No description

## `processingSeconds` (type: `string`):

No description

## `text` (type: `string`):

No description

## `srt` (type: `string`):

No description

## `vtt` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "mediaUrl": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/master/samples/jfk.wav"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("ozwstone/transcriber-adapter").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "mediaUrl": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/master/samples/jfk.wav" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("ozwstone/transcriber-adapter").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "mediaUrl": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/master/samples/jfk.wav"
}' |
apify call ozwstone/transcriber-adapter --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,ozwstone/transcriber-adapter"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/LiugTBt8ktaaKaPoX/builds/R3fwCqkNHqIfEdzLo/openapi.json