Turn Lecture Recordings into Notes
Upload a lecture recording or capture one in the browser, then review the lecture transcription and optional key-point notes here. Cloud processing accepts files up to 1GB and 60 minutes and uses account credits. Notes reuse the existing Pro or Max summary — this page does not run a separate notes model.
- File or browser recording
- Transcript stays with the notes
- Summary on Pro and Max
- TXT and DOCX export
- 1GB / 60 minutes
Whisper Web
0 min left
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Estimate appears after audio is ready. This creates one saved task in My records.
Requires an active Pro or Max plan.
The two stages are charged separately. Summary is an explicit Pro or Max action and uses the saved transcript, so a summary retry never retranscribes the audio. The server verifies final usage and plan access.
How do you want to transcribe?
Free minutes are included. Upload a file or record audio to start.
Choose your file and settings before signing in; sign in to submit. Processing uploads media to cloud services and uses account credits. Sign in to see your current plan and available credits. Review the estimate first — see plans and usage limits and our privacy policy.
WhisperWeb vs Otter vs Happy Scribe vs Notta
Students searching “lecture to notes” are usually holding a finished recording and need wording they can check. Meeting bots optimize for live calls. The table below is a dated reading of public pricing and feature pages, not a scorecard. No accuracy percentages, star ratings, or search volumes are claimed.
| Aspect | WhisperWeb | Otter.ai | Happy Scribe | Notta |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture file upload | WhisperWebAvailable: Upload or record hereMP3, WAV, M4A, MP4, MOV, FLAC, OGG, WebM, or AAC, plus in-browser capture. No meeting bot. | Otter.aiLimited: Live notes first; imports cappedBuilt around a bot in Zoom, Meet, and Teams. Basic allows 3 lifetime file imports; Pro lists 10 imports per month. | Happy ScribeAvailable: Upload, link, or recordFile upload, URL import, browser recorder, and a meeting notetaker. Human proofreading is a paid add-on. | NottaAvailable: File and meeting captureUploads plus Zoom, Meet, Teams, and Webex. Free plan allows 50 file uploads a month, each capped at 3 minutes. |
| Free-tier length vs a 50-minute lecture | WhisperWebLimited: 5 free minutesA standard lecture does not fit the free allowance. Starter is 120 minutes per month; credits follow duration. | Otter.aiLimited: 300 minutes, 30-minute capBasic is free with 300 minutes per month, but each conversation stops at 30 minutes — short of a typical class. | Happy ScribeLimited: 10-minute AI trialFree meeting recordings run 45 minutes each. AI transcription, subtitling, and translation on Free are a 10-minute trial. | NottaNot available: 3 minutes per conversationFree includes 120 minutes per month, but each recording stops at 3 minutes, so a lecture needs a paid plan. |
| Notes after the transcript | WhisperWebLimited: Existing Pro/Max summaryOverview, key points, chapters, and action items from the saved transcript. Not Cornell notes, flashcards, or a quiz bank. | Otter.aiAvailable: Summaries on all plansAutomated summaries with action items and outlines. AI Chat is capped by plan. Live notes are the product, not file review. | Happy ScribeAvailable: AI meeting summariesSummaries and AI Chat on paid plans; Free analyzes 3 files per month. Custom summary templates sit on Pro and Business. | NottaAvailable: AI summaries on every plan10 summaries per month on Free, 100 on Pro, 200 on Business. Translation and bilingual capture are add-ons. |
| Check notes against the original | WhisperWebAvailable: Transcript stays on the same taskExpand the original, replay the audio, then edit. An edited transcript marks older notes out of date until you regenerate. | Otter.aiLimited: Live transcript in the Otter appYou can read the transcript beside Otter notes. This page does not embed Otter; verify current review tools on their site. | Happy ScribeAvailable: Online editor plus exportsEdit in the browser, then download TXT, DOCX, PDF, SRT, and other formats depending on plan. | NottaAvailable: Editor with timestampsEdit, search, and export on paid plans. Free users can view only the first 3 minutes after downgrading, per Notta's FAQ. |
| Starting paid price | WhisperWebAvailable: From $9.90/mo, or $4.90/mo yearlyStarter $9.90/mo ($58.80/yr). Pro $29.90/mo or $14.90/mo yearly. Max $49.90/mo or $24.90/mo yearly. Per account, not per seat. | Otter.aiLimited: From $16.99/user/mo, or $8.33 yearlyPro $16.99/user/mo or $8.33/user/mo billed annually. Business $30/user/mo or $19.99/user/mo annually. | Happy ScribeLimited: From $17/mo, or $8.50 yearlyBasic $17/mo or $8.50/mo billed annually, with 120 AI minutes per month and $0.20/min overage. | NottaLimited: Pro $8.17/mo billed annually$97.99 per year on the public Pro page. Free is $0. Monthly billing exists; confirm the live toggle before you buy. |
| Languages for lecture speech | WhisperWebAvailable: 100+ languages with auto-detectSame transcription stack as the general workspace. Written translation of the saved transcript is a separate Pro/Max action. | Otter.aiLimited: 6 transcription languagesEnglish, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese, as listed on Otter's pricing page. | Happy ScribeAvailable: 150+ languages listedHappy Scribe advertises 150+ languages for AI transcription and 80+ for AI translation. Confirm the language you need before paying. | NottaLimited: Multi-language, custom vocab on English and JapaneseNotta's public pages emphasize 58 transcription languages in third-party roundups; custom vocabulary is listed for English and Japanese. Confirm on Notta before relying on a course language. |
Figures checked on 2026-09-10 against otter.ai/pricing, happyscribe.com/pricing, notta.ai/en/pricing, and WhisperWeb plans and usage limits. Brand names are trademarks of their owners. Plans change; read the live pages before you buy. This table does not rank products or invent keyword volumes.
Choose WhisperWeb when
- You already have a lecture file or can record in the browser, and you want the work to finish on this page.
- You need to expand the original lecture transcription beside any key points before you study or cite.
- The course language is outside Otter's six listed languages, and you do not want a bot in the session.
- TXT and DOCX from the saved transcript matter more than live captions during class.
Another product may fit better when
- You want a bot to join Zoom, Meet, or Teams and type while the lecture is still happening — that is Otter, Happy Scribe, or Notta, not WhisperWeb.
- You need a human-proofread transcript or broadcast subtitle package — Happy Scribe sells that as a separate service from $2.00/min.
- You want AI summaries on a free plan. WhisperWeb summary is Pro or Max only; Otter and Notta advertise summaries on free tiers with other caps.
- You need slide OCR, flashcards, or an exam question bank. None of those run on this page, and this copy does not claim they do elsewhere.
How It Works
The loop is upload or record, wait on this URL, then read the transcript before any notes. There is no redirect to the general workspace on submit.
Upload Your Recording
Choose a lecture file you have permission to process, or record in the browser after granting the microphone. Set the spoken language or leave detection on. The duration and credit estimate appear before submit — a 50-minute class is about 50 credits, not the 5-minute free allowance. This page does not import a Panopto or Zoom URL; use the general transcription workspace when the source is a link.
Review the Result
Progress, errors, and the finished lecture transcription stay on this route. Play the audio, expand the original wording, and correct names, numbers, and formulas before you trust any notes. Speaker labels are a first pass. If a run fails, read the message; retrying a rejected file without changing the export rarely helps. When Pro or Max summary access is available, request key points on the same task — a failed notes step keeps the transcript.
Export Your Text or Notes
Save the transcript, then download TXT or DOCX from that saved text. Unsaved edits do not travel with the file. If a summary exists, download its separate TXT from the notes view; that file is labeled as an audio summary, not a guaranteed study guide. Reopen the task link to return without uploading again. The same record appears under Recordings.
Review Concepts Against the Lecture
A useful lecture-to-notes pass is not a shorter paragraph. It is a map from a heading back to a sentence you can replay. The practice clip below names a person, speaks a formula, and works a number — the three places lecture transcription most often drifts. If a term is unclear in the audio, mark it for review instead of inventing notation.
- Price elasticity of demand
- opening definition
- The lecture's topic, not a slide title. Keep it as the heading of your outline.
- Alfred Marshall
- named source
- A proper name. Confirm spelling against the audio before it enters a citation.
- PED = %ΔQd / %ΔP
- spoken formula
- Spoken as “P E D equals…”. Automatic text often drops symbols; rewrite the formula by hand.
- 2.5
- worked number
- Tied to a 1 percent price rise. If the transcript writes 25 or 2,50, the notes are wrong.
This page does not read the chalkboard. If the lecturer writes a derivation that is never spoken, it will not appear in the transcript or in any notes derived from it.
See an Example
The clip is an original synthetic reading of a short microeconomics lecture, generated with eSpeak NG for this page. It is not a student recording and not a claimed model result. Use it to practise the upload, review, and export path, then compare “Marshall”, “2.5”, and the spoken PED formula against the script.
- Codec
- MPEG audio (libmp3lame, variable bitrate)
- Sample rate
- 44.1 kHz
- Channels
- Mono
- Duration
- 33.04 seconds
- File size
- 412,009 bytes (about 402 KiB)
- Credits
- 1 (past the 30-second 0.5-credit band)
Download practice MP3 · Download reference transcript · Download authored notes
Reference lecture transcription
Today we define price elasticity of demand. Alfred Marshall used it to describe how quantity responds to price. Write P E D equals the percent change in quantity demanded divided by the percent change in price. If that ratio is 2.5, a 1 percent price rise cuts quantity demanded by 2.5 percent. Demand is elastic when the absolute value is greater than 1. Check the sign and the units before you quote the number.
Authored notes from that script
- Topic: price elasticity of demand (PED).
- Definition: PED = percent change in quantity demanded / percent change in price.
- Named source: Alfred Marshall.
- Worked number: 2.5 means a 1 percent price rise cuts quantity demanded by 2.5 percent.
- Rule: elastic when the absolute value is greater than 1.
- Review flag: sign and units before quoting.
These bullets were written from the script, not generated by the summarizer. A live summary can omit Marshall, drop the 2.5, or invent a deadline. If you later edit the transcript, regenerate notes — the product marks the old summary out of date rather than silently mixing versions.
Supported Files and Plan Limits
This route accepts lecture audio and common lecture-capture video: MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4, MOV, FLAC, OGG, WebM, and AAC, plus a browser recording. URL import is off here. Cloud processing allows 1GB or 60 minutes per file, whichever arrives first. Credits follow duration: 0.5 credit up to 30 seconds, then one credit per started minute. A two-hour seminar must be split before upload.
- Base lecture transcription uses transcription credits on every plan, including the 5-minute free start. The server re-checks file type, size, duration, and balance on submit.
- Structured notes reuse the existing AI summary. That step needs an active Pro or Max subscription and is billed as its own credit-backed action. Starter and the free allowance can still produce a transcript and TXT or DOCX. See plans and usage limits.
- Audio is uploaded to cloud services. Do not treat this page as on-device Whisper. Review the privacy policy before sending a class that contains other students' voices.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I check notes against the original transcript?
Yes. The lecture transcription remains on the same task. Open the original or edited text, replay the audio, and only then trust a key point. If you change the saved wording, existing notes show as out of date until you regenerate them. Subtitle-only timing edits do not count as a transcript change.
Will equations be captured correctly?
Not reliably. Speech-to-text writes what it hears, so “P E D equals the percent change…” may land as words, missing symbols, or a mangled fraction. Board work that is never spoken is invisible. Treat every formula as a review item: replay, rewrite in your notation, and keep the original sentence beside it.
Is this a dedicated lecture-notes model?
No. WhisperWeb does not ship a separate notes engine on this route. You get the shared transcription pipeline, then — on Pro or Max — the shared audio summary (overview, key points, chapters, action items) exported as its existing TXT. Cornell layout, flashcards, and exam-question generation are out of scope.
Is lecture transcription free, and does it run on my machine?
Neither as a default. Files are uploaded and processed in the cloud against account credits. The free start is 5 minutes, which will not cover a seminar. Choosing a file does nothing until you sign in and submit. Current allowances live on the pricing page, not in this paragraph.
Where can I find the lecture after I leave?
Open Recordings in this account, or paste the task URL back onto this lecture page. The server checks ownership, so a leaked task id does not let another user download your class. A refresh before submit drops the browser File, which cannot be rebuilt from a filename — pick the recording again.