How an MP4 becomes text
A converter does three jobs in a row.
- Take out the audio. An MP4 file holds video, audio and other data together. The speech is in the audio track, so that is the part the converter needs. This one reads the audio track from the file in your browser and cuts it into parts of about a minute.
- Recognise the speech. A speech recognition model turns each part of the audio into words with punctuation. This converter uses ElevenLabs’ Scribe v2 model, reached through fal.ai. It detects the language by itself and writes the text in the language that is spoken.
- Put the text together. The parts are joined in order, split into sentences and grouped into paragraphs. Timecodes and subtitle files are made from the times the model reports for each word.
The first and third jobs happen in your browser. Only the audio parts travel to the speech model. We do not keep them, and the privacy policy says what is known about the model provider.
What to check in any MP4 to text converter
Converters differ in ways that matter before you pick one. These are the points worth reading on any converter’s page, with the answer for this one.
- Length and size limits. Here the limit is 3 hours of audio per file.
- Whether the video is uploaded. Here it is not. Only the audio is sent.
- What is free. Here the first 5 minutes of up to 3 files a day, with no sign-up.
- How you pay for more. Here a minute pack, paid once, with no subscription. Minutes can be used for 12 months, and unused minutes are refunded within 14 days. See pricing.
- What you can do with the result. Here you can correct sentences on the page, copy the text, download TXT, and with a pack download DOCX, SRT and VTT.
- What is stored. Here the transcript is saved only in your browser, and you can delete it. The privacy policy lists everything that is stored.
What changes the accuracy
The recording matters most. Clear speech, a microphone close to the speaker and little background noise give the best text. Overlapping voices, strong background music, heavy accents, names and technical terms give more mistakes. The model also tends to add words when it hears silence or music, so read those stretches before you rely on the text.
MP4 to text and MP4 to transcript
The two names describe the same result. On this site the text comes as plain paragraphs, and a transcript with timecodes is one switch away. To convert a file now, use the MP4 to transcript converter. For the steps, read how to convert MP4 to text.