> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://api-docs.voicecheap.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Transcribe Media

> Transcribe an audio or video file as complete JSON, SRT, or VTT

# Transcribe Media

Upload an audio or video file and receive its transcript directly. This standalone endpoint does not create a dubbing project.

The endpoint accepts files up to **200 MB** and **2 hours**. It uses the same API-key access rules as the translation API.
Successful requests return HTTP `200`.

## Request

Send `multipart/form-data` with the following fields.

<ParamField header="x-api-key" type="string" required>
  Your VoiceCheap API key.
</ParamField>

<ParamField body="file" type="file" required>
  The audio or video file to transcribe. Supported formats include MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, MPEG, MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, OGG, and AAC.
</ParamField>

<ParamField body="outputFormat" type="string" default="json">
  Response format: `json`, `srt`, or `vtt`.
</ParamField>

<ParamField body="originalLanguage" type="string" default="auto-detect">
  Supported source-language ISO code. Leave this as `auto-detect` unless you know the source language. Unsupported explicit languages return a validation error before processing starts.
</ParamField>

<ParamField body="numberOfSpeakers" type="string" default="auto-detect">
  `auto-detect` or an integer from `1` through `32`.
</ParamField>

<ParamField body="brandVocabulary" type="string">
  A JSON string array of names, brands, acronyms, or domain terms to recognize. Request terms are merged with saved account or team vocabulary.

  ```json theme={null}
  ["VoiceCheap", "SmartSync", "ITC Global"]
  ```
</ParamField>

<ParamField body="removeFillerWords" type="boolean" default="true">
  Remove common filler words from the transcript.
</ParamField>

<ParamField body="includeSpeakerLabels" type="boolean" default="false">
  Prefix SRT cues with `Speaker N:` or add VTT voice tags. JSON always includes the numeric speaker on every segment and word.
</ParamField>

## JSON response

JSON is the most complete output. It contains the full text, language confidence, media duration, speakers, timestamped segments, and timestamped words.

```json theme={null}
{
  "source": "standalone",
  "language": "en",
  "languageConfidence": 0.99,
  "duration": 12.4,
  "text": "Welcome to VoiceCheap.",
  "speakers": [{ "id": 0, "label": "Speaker 1" }],
  "segments": [
    {
      "index": 0,
      "text": "Welcome to VoiceCheap.",
      "begin": 0.18,
      "end": 1.74,
      "duration": 1.56,
      "speaker": 0,
      "language": "en",
      "confidence": 0.94,
      "words": [
        {
          "index": 0,
          "text": "Welcome",
          "speaker": 0,
          "confidence": 0.96,
          "begin": 0.18,
          "end": 0.62,
          "duration": 0.44
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "words": [
    {
      "index": 0,
      "text": "Welcome",
      "speaker": 0,
      "confidence": 0.96,
      "begin": 0.18,
      "end": 0.62,
      "duration": 0.44
    }
  ]
}
```

## Examples

<CodeGroup>
  ```bash cURL — JSON theme={null}
  curl -X POST "https://api.voicecheap.ai/v1/transcribe" \
    -H "x-api-key: vc_your-api-key" \
    -F "file=@interview.mp4" \
    -F "outputFormat=json" \
    -F "numberOfSpeakers=2" \
    -F 'brandVocabulary=["VoiceCheap","SmartSync"]'
  ```

  ```bash cURL — SRT theme={null}
  curl -X POST "https://api.voicecheap.ai/v1/transcribe" \
    -H "x-api-key: vc_your-api-key" \
    -F "file=@interview.mp4" \
    -F "outputFormat=srt" \
    -F "includeSpeakerLabels=true" \
    --output interview.srt
  ```

  ```bash cURL — VTT theme={null}
  curl -X POST "https://api.voicecheap.ai/v1/transcribe" \
    -H "x-api-key: vc_your-api-key" \
    -F "file=@interview.mp4" \
    -F "outputFormat=vtt" \
    --output interview.vtt
  ```
</CodeGroup>

## Errors

| Status | Code                        | Description                                   |
| ------ | --------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| 400    | `FILE_REQUIRED`             | No file was uploaded                          |
| 400    | `INVALID_FILE_TYPE`         | File type is not supported                    |
| 400    | `INVALID_MEDIA_STREAM`      | File has no audio stream                      |
| 400    | `DURATION_DETECTION_FAILED` | Media duration could not be read              |
| 400    | `DURATION_TOO_LONG`         | Media is longer than two hours                |
| 400    | `INVALID_BRAND_VOCABULARY`  | One or more vocabulary entries are invalid    |
| 400    | `INVALID_BOOLEAN_VALUE`     | A multipart boolean is not `true` or `false`  |
| 400    | `INVALID_JSON_FORMAT`       | A JSON-encoded multipart field is malformed   |
| 400    | `INVALID_MULTIPART_REQUEST` | Multipart form data is malformed or too large |
| 413    | `FILE_TOO_LARGE`            | File exceeds 200 MB                           |
| 502    | `TRANSCRIPTION_EMPTY`       | The transcription returned no usable speech   |
| 502    | `TRANSCRIPTION_FAILED`      | The transcription engine could not finish     |