Media management specialist Axle AI is the latest vendor that wants to help editors with speech-to-text transcription. The company’s AI-powered speech services, which are based on a mix of proprietary and licensed technologies, have been incorporated in Ascribe.ai.
Ascribe.ai exports an audio file in the background, then uploads it to a cloud service that returns a transcript and returns sidecar XMP files containing the transcripts while pushing relevant markers to the Premiere Pro timeline. Axle says the process is faster than real time, with a minute of footage taking as little as 10 seconds to transcribe and return. SRT or VTT files are also available for export, Axle said.
The software is free and includes an hour of transcription at no charge. The least-expensive subscription plan includes two and a half hours of transcription for $4.95 a month. Extra time can be added in blocks of 600 minutes ($19) or 6000 minutes ($170), with any unused minutes rolling over into subsequent months. Alternately, monthly subscriptions are also available at $34 for 1200 minutes/month, $65 for 2400 minutes/month, or $120 for 4800 minutes/month.
Axle is far from the only company targeting transcription services at video editors, but CEO Sam Bogoch told StudioDaily the company expects price to be a selling point.
“We believe [Ascribe.ai] offers the best price-performance of any speech transcription platform available today, and our intent is to keep driving cost down over the next few years to the point that transcription can be an ‘always-on’ utility with increasing levels of accuracy and feature sets,” Bogoch said. “Our vision is that by 2022, nearly all professionally captured video and audio will be transcribed and annotated for basic face and object identification, simply because not doing those things would be neglectful — like not bothering to adjust mic audio level or camera focus.”
Ascribe.ai runs as a Premiere Pro panel on MacOS, using “nearly any connection” to access the company’s cloud services. We’re told the Windows version is still being tweaked, with an ETA later this week or early next. Supported languages include American and British English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Korean, with more to come, the company said.
Ascribe.ai is available now from the company’s website and will soon be available via the Adobe Exchange marketplace, Axle said.
