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Show HN: Scriber Pro – Offline AI transcription for macOS
Hey HN! Built this because I was tired of waiting hours for transcription
services and didn't want to upload sensitive recordings to the cloud.
Real metrics from my M1 Max: 4.5hr video file transcribed in 3 minutes 32
seconds. Works completely offline.
First 5 HN users who click the button on the page get it free. Literally promo code straight to the app sore
Key differences vs Rev/Otter:
- No 2-hour file limits (handles any length)
- Timecodes stay accurate on long files (no drift from chunking)
- Supports MP3, WAV, MP4, MOV, M4A, FLAC
- Exports to SRT, VTT, JSON, PDF, DOCX, CSV, Markdown
Built for macOS. Happy to answer questions!
- pmarreck 1y agoDoes it do separate speaker identification (diarization)? What's the stack, if I may ask? (I believe Whisper-X does the diarization thing)
- jiriro 1y agoWill it transcribe audio in Czech (in future versions)? Actually I would be happy if it could just identify occurrences (timestamps) of a specific word or a small set of words.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nubg 1y agoHow does it compare to MacWhisper?
- rezivor 1y agoMacWhisper crashes at about an hour of context. This uses, smart, invisible regex in the text generation pipe. Makes this fast. + bonus, there is no context limit
- barapa 1y agoSmart invisible regex makes it fast and prevents it from crashing? What does that mean?
- grosswait 1y agoI've done 3+hours with MacWhisper without issue? One downside is the transcription is not real time - can Scriber Pro do realtime?
- KPGv2 1y agoI haven't worked in a while with transcription, but whisper.cpp itself (which I assume is the underlying tech behind MacWhisper) does realtime transcription on my MBP with an M1 Pro chip. When I first started writing my last completed novel, I fired it up and just started telling the story to test it out. Realtime. That was back in 2023. I assume things work better now.
- fl_rn_st 1y ago"Smart, invisible regex" sounds like a lot of bs... could you give a more technical explanation? Also the Whisper model doesn't really have a context window, it already segments the audio with a certain amount of overlap between the chunks, I really have a hard time understanding what you are trying to say here.
- rezivor 1y agoWhisper will fail > 99%* (edit, most of the time) of the time at lengths over 90 minutes and fairly high over one hour.
- fl_rn_st 1y agoThis is just plain wrong. I have my own Whisper App in the AppStore (on iOS, with very limited memory capacity) and there are no problems at all with longer Audio / Video files.
- brokensegue 1y agoWord level timestamps?
- rezivor 1y agoCan you clarify your question
- qwertytyyuu 1y agoI think they are trying to do something like select a word in the transcript and be take straight to the point in the video that said word was spoken
- rezivor 1y agoAh, I think you're asking if a user can, when wanting timestamps, if they can further edit the output to be by word? Currently set around each sentence (2-5s) --- But that is absolutely doable and that’s a great idea - On the next update (~3-4wks) I’ll definitely include the ability to control that.
- brokensegue 1y agohttps://stackoverflow.com/questions/73822353/how-can-i-get-word-level-timestamps-in-openais-whisper-asr https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73822353/how-can-i-get-w...
- trvr 1y agoIs there a reason it requires macOS 26?
- tomalbrc 1y agoTahoe really is just unusable
- trvr 1y agoHence why I'm asking why it requires it. Trying to hold off as long as I can!
- rezivor 1y agoThanks. An update that will add functionality that allows a user to give it a link that contains web video, will do dynamic link discovery (with Safari extension, and pull in the video automatically (M3U8 discover and retrieval) -- Lots of online lecture videos that need transcription. I will include better version support (probably to os 13).
- rezivor 1y agoUses liquidGlass fairly heavily- just design reasons-- I'm happy to expand compatibility
- trvr 1y agoAt $3.99 this was an instant buy for me until the App Store told me I couldn't. I think the venn diagram between HN users and those holding off on Tahoe is probably a pretty big overlap. ;-)
- rezivor 1y agoIf ever there were a reason to upgrade! But thats a fair point- I drank the Liquid Glass Kool-Aid----- I'll aim more compatibility the next upgrade
- 1y ago
- torstenvl 1y agoYou use the word "transcribe" but the page doesn't appear to support that claim? This looks like straightforward STT? Or does it actually support transcription (diarization, etc.)? (Also, the text is completely illegible on your site.)
- rezivor 1y agor/#FF0000_rage
- Telemakhos 1y agoWhat languages does this support? Does it support switching between multiple languages in one video? For example, could it support a video that included spoken Latin, ancient Greek, German, and Italian?
- rezivor 1y agoeng der fr de es it pt ru zh ko ar and ja
- Telemakhos 1y agoSo, can it handle multiple languages in one video, or do you need to segment the different languages using LID first? This has been a thorny issue for people working in multilingual audio (there are at least two or three of us).
- rezivor 1y agoI haven't test that specific edge case, I'm sorry. I tested 2 langue's having a normal conversation and that worked fine- "Auto or English" handle multiple lan the best
- runxel 1y agoSo weird that this is nowhere stated on the website at all. Was literally the first and only thing I was interested in. So bad.
- nvdnadj92 1y agoI vibecoded a similar app. Here’s the open source link, if folks want to build their own: https://github.com/naveedn/audio-transcriber https://github.com/naveedn/audio-transcriber
- rezivor 1y agoSlower
- ramon156 1y agoYours isn't OSS, meaning I have no idea what I'm running
- rezivor 1y agoOSS would be incredibly slow, also seems like overkill for this use case
- fl_rn_st 1y agoWhat does that even mean? Why would OSS make it slower? Why would it be an overkill? This is not Producthunt, you have to give at least some kind of explanation for your claims.
- mpeg 1y agoI was going to buy the app, but these responses are putting me off massively. How would making it OSS slow it down?
- kamranjon 1y agoI suspect, from the responses of the creator here, that this app they are selling is likely violating a number of open source licenses…
- sings_lullabies 1y ago[dead]
- yewenjie 1y agoDoes it support speaker diarization?
- scilro 1y agoSeconding/thirding the request for diarization! I would use this as my main transcription app if it had that.
- rezivor 1y agoI use it as my own transcription app, I really do love it ( biased I know, but genuinely)
- geerlingguy 1y agoI've been using MacWhisper for this, with a huge variety of transcription options and things like speaker detection. It works great for all the 1 hour and shorter videos I've fed it, but does this have more to offer? I haven't tried a 4+ hour video with MacWhisper but I presume that would work the same.
- rezivor 1y agoPlease be my guest to test my claims. No tall tales here!
- gcr 1y agoMacWhisper handles multiple-hour-long recordings just fine for me. I regularly process 4hrs on MacWhisper. Even whisper-cpp works fine these days for long recordings too. Cool product, but it would be better if you stopped spreading misinformation to support it.
- lostlogin 1y ago> Cool product, but it would be better if you stopped spreading misinformation to support it. I don’t see this sort of thing, has the page changed? Edit: the comments here… The drop shadow on the pages does make it deeply unpleasant to read.
- aquir 1y agoMy eyes, my eyes! What is this red colour? Cool project, I am using ChatGPT for recording/summarising meetings but the limit there is 2 hours
- rezivor 1y agoThat my friend, is just one of the annoying bottlenecks, that inspired me to do this Also that color is color(display-p3 .768627 .031373 .031373 / 1)- It is actually technically redder than red actually is
- mattfrommars 1y agoWhat is your tech stack to make this? Is it end to end swift?
- rezivor 1y agoSwift 37.0% C++ 26.5% C 19.8% Rust 4.7% Shell 4.4% Objective-C 1.7% Other 5.9%
- CaptainOfCoit 1y agoWhat language do you have the model architecture and implementation in? Feel like it would be the biggest proportion of the codebase, curious if you did it in Swift?
- CrazyCatDog 1y agoQuestion: can it discern (and label) different speakers? If so, could you kindly share the limit on speakers per video?
- oidar 1y agoYou are looking for speaker diarization. No one is doing this well currently on device (in macOS land at least).
- shloky 1y agoOr in the cloud tbh
- rezivor 1y agoNo, not yet! That will definitely be included in the next update next month. Thank you for reminding me of peoples unique need for this use case
- CharlesW 1y agoMacWhisper Pro supports this, if your need for this is time-sensitive. https://macwhisper.helpscoutdocs.com/article/32-automatic-speaker-recognition-in-macwhisper https://macwhisper.helpscoutdocs.com/article/32-automatic-sp...
- xnx 1y agoYou can also run Whisper locally in your browser for free: https://ggml.ai/whisper.cpp/ https://ggml.ai/whisper.cpp/
- rezivor 1y agoGreat when you have time to kill and not a lot to process I suppose
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thedangler 1y agoAny way to access this with python so I can use it programmatically?
- rezivor 1y agoThis isn't run using Python, but also no
- oasisbob 1y agoTimecode drift is an interesting issue, think I faced this recently while translating a Google Meet transcript into an incident report timeline. The elapsed-time timestamps didn't correlate well with other data sources. I figured it was a mistake on my end, and just brushed it off.
- mattstudio 1y agoOne thing that Rev and other online services have as well as MacWhisper is a good interface for editing the text to correct inevitable errors. Being able to click on the text and have it sync to the correct place in the audio is a must for my use case of transcribing interviews. Also speaker diarization.
- rezivor 1y agoScribers’ iCloud system automatically backs up each transcription and organizes them in a three-pane folder view—somewhat inspired by Bars’ layout. This structure allows a surprising degree of customization for all your data needs, especially when transcribing interviews. It would probably make for a very comfortable workflow here
- constantinum 1y agoI sort of use SuperWhisper, it is sort of good. https://superwhisper.com/ https://superwhisper.com/
- dang 1y ago[stub for offtopicness]
- Oras 1y agoThe landing page is difficult to read due to the strong red background.
- rezivor 1y agoThank you. I have heard this : P - It will change soon.
- ta1243 1y agoI learned this as a young developer writing status pages. I had a colour-blind colleague, so text on green/yellow/red. Typically white text works better on red.
- seanwilson 1y agoReds people choose are usually between dark and light, which doesn't contrast particularly well on anything because for good contrast you need a dark color vs a light color. Green, yellow, red or whatever hue is fine, as long as it's dark or light enough. Colorblind and non-colorblind people can see how dark or light a color is (luminance), but they might not agree on the hue. That's why WCAG contrast checks require luminance contrast and not hue contrast. It's best to use a contrast checker because it's not always intuitive how dark or light a color is e.g. yellow and lime are almost as light as white.
- iLoveOncall 1y agoThat page has a very aggressive background color and really low contrast. Extremely annoying.
- rezivor 1y agoThank you ! I think I was actually going for that
- vladsanchez 1y agoApp Store link no longer works. Willing to try/purchase but it's nowhere available. AppStore search doesn't return "Scriber Pro" either. Thanks.
- KPGv2 1y agoFYI it works now because I just brought it up. The website mentions there were HN promo/discount codes, so I honestly expected the app to be like $20+, so color me shocked when it's $3.99.
- vladsanchez 1y agoFYI: Still doesn't redirect... Had to remove the url query params. Only https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scriber-pro/id6751968220 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scriber-pro/id6751968220 worked as expected. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the "Speaker Detection" feature release. ;)
- Oleh_h 1y agoWow, it's a very pleasant price.
- busymichael 1y agoAs a side project, I just launched a privacy-first web-based meeting transcriber (https://basilai.app/app https://basilai.app/app). Everything runs entirely in your browser — both the transcription and AI summarization — so no audio or text ever leaves your device. I'm using the browser built in transcription service plus downloading a model and running it via webgpu. No login. At the end of your meeting, you get a zip file with the audio, transcript and summary.
- FitchApps 1y agoNice work. What model did you use and do you ship the model with a base distribution or is it downloaded with the app?
- woodson 1y agoProbably NVIDIA’s Parakeet-TDT-0.6b-v3.
- tempodox 1y agoToo bad it requires that unspeakable abomination macOS 26. No can do.
- rezivor 1y agoThe update that was released yesterday is now compatible with macOS 15.6. If you email support I will be happy to give you a promo code for a free download.
- re 1y agoWhat libraries/models is this built on?
- xjlin0 1y agoIs it only for English? is CLI available? There are thousands of files on my local and I'd like to save results to local db. Thanks!
- cassettelabs 1y agoNot gonna lie, the pricing is super attractive! :) I'd love to see an API, so I can also run automations using this tool on my mac.
- der_philipp 1y agoAlso look at Vibe: It even supports speaker differentiation/recognition and is open source on mac/windows/linux; https://github.com/thewh1teagle/vibe https://github.com/thewh1teagle/vibe
- der_philipp 1y agoIt uses whisper, but also directly calls other tools and puts everything under one nice Gui
- masonkim25 1y agoI’ve also been pretty careful with sensitive recordings, so the offline part really stands out to me. This looks great.
- rezivor 1y agoA week later and, as of this morning it’s number six in the top 10 paid utilities app on the MacApp Store I’m glad all the feedback so far has been very positive. Thanks everyone ! Oh and it supports MacOs15.6 now too