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Welcome to OpenTranscribe

OpenTranscribe is a powerful, self-hosted AI-powered transcription and media analysis platform that turns your audio and video files into searchable, analyzable text with advanced features like speaker identification, AI summarization, and cross-media intelligence.

What is OpenTranscribe?​

OpenTranscribe combines state-of-the-art AI models with a modern web interface to provide:

  • High-accuracy transcription using WhisperX with word-level timestamps
  • Automatic speaker identification with voice fingerprinting across videos
  • AI-powered summarization with customizable prompts and LLM integration
  • Full-text and semantic search powered by OpenSearch
  • Privacy-first processing - everything runs locally on your infrastructure

Key Features​

🎧 Advanced Transcription​

  • WhisperX integration with faster-whisper backend
  • Word-level timestamps with WAV2VEC2 alignment
  • Multi-language support with automatic English translation
  • 70x realtime speed on GPU (large-v2 model)
  • Support for audio (MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A) and video (MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV)

👥 Smart Speaker Management​

  • Automatic speaker diarization using PyAnnote.audio
  • Cross-video speaker recognition with voice fingerprinting
  • LLM-enhanced speaker identification
  • Global speaker profiles that persist across transcriptions
  • Confidence scoring and manual verification workflow

🤖 AI-Powered Features​

  • LLM summarization with BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) format
  • Support for multiple LLM providers (OpenAI, Claude, vLLM, Ollama, OpenRouter)
  • Custom AI prompts for different content types
  • Intelligent section-by-section processing for unlimited transcript lengths
  • Speaker analytics and interaction patterns

🔍 Search & Discovery​

  • Hybrid search combining keyword and semantic search
  • 9.5x faster vector search with OpenSearch 3.3.1
  • Advanced filtering by speaker, date, tags, duration
  • Collections for organizing related media
  • Interactive waveform visualization with click-to-seek

📊 Analytics & Insights​

  • Speaker analytics (talk time, interruptions, pace)
  • Meeting efficiency metrics
  • Action item extraction
  • Cross-video speaker tracking

Why OpenTranscribe?​

Open Source & Self-Hosted​

  • Full control over your data - nothing leaves your infrastructure
  • AGPL-3.0 License - open source with network copyleft protection
  • No subscription fees - one-time setup, unlimited use
  • Privacy-first - ideal for sensitive content (legal, medical, business)

Production-Ready​

  • Docker-based deployment - runs anywhere
  • GPU acceleration - NVIDIA GPUs supported
  • Multi-worker architecture - process multiple files in parallel
  • Offline capable - works in airgapped environments

Modern Stack​

  • React + TypeScript frontend - responsive, PWA-enabled
  • FastAPI backend - high-performance Python
  • PostgreSQL + OpenSearch - reliable, scalable storage
  • Celery workers - distributed background processing

Use Cases​

OpenTranscribe is perfect for:

  • 📞 Meeting transcriptions - Record and analyze team meetings with speaker identification
  • 🎙️ Podcast production - Generate transcripts and show notes automatically
  • 🎓 Academic research - Transcribe interviews and lectures for analysis
  • ⚖️ Legal & compliance - Accurate transcripts with speaker identification for depositions
  • 📞 Customer service - Analyze support calls for quality and training
  • 🎬 Content creation - Generate subtitles and content from videos

Quick Look​

# Install with one command
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/davidamacey/OpenTranscribe/master/setup-opentranscribe.sh | bash

# Start the application
cd opentranscribe
./opentranscribe.sh start

# Access at http://localhost:5173

Architecture Overview​

┌─────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐
│  Frontend   │────▶│   Backend    │────▶│   Workers   │
│   (Svelte)  │     │  (FastAPI)   │     │  (Celery)   │
└─────────────┘     └──────────────┘     └─────────────┘
                            │                    │
                            ▼                    ▼
                    ┌──────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐
                    │  PostgreSQL  │     │  WhisperX   │
                    │    MinIO     │     │  PyAnnote   │
                    │ OpenSearch   │     │     LLM     │
                    └──────────────┘     └─────────────┘

System Requirements​

Minimum:

  • 8GB RAM
  • 4 CPU cores
  • 50GB disk space
  • Docker & Docker Compose

Recommended:

  • 16GB+ RAM
  • 8+ CPU cores
  • 100GB+ SSD
  • NVIDIA GPU with 8GB+ VRAM (RTX 3070 or better)

Next Steps​

Ready to get started? Follow our Quick Start Guide to install OpenTranscribe in minutes.

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