Potok turns speech into text in 33 languages, including English and Russian.
You can transcribe a video into text with the Potok bot @potok_now_bot or its web version: send a file or give a YouTube, VK Video, RuTube, Instagram or TikTok link, and you get the finished text, a short one right in the chat and a long one as a file. 60 minutes per month are free, and files of up to 2 GB are easier to upload in the web version.
A video can be turned into text in two ways: send a file or simply give a link to the video, and then the Potok bot @potok_now_bot or the bot's mini app does everything.
Transcribing a video step by step
- If the video is already a file on your computer or phone, send it to the bot in Telegram (you can send it as a document) or upload it to the Potok bot by dragging and dropping; files of up to 2 GB are accepted.
- If the video is on YouTube, VK Video or RuTube, send the bot or the web version a link to the video: you do not need to download it to a computer.
- Wait for the reply: a short recording comes as text right in the chat, a long one as a separate file (TXT or DOCX); in the web version the finished text opens at once on the recording page.
- If several people speak in the video, turn on timecodes and speaker labels in advance. In
the bot these are the
/settings, in the web version the card of the recording itself.
For long videos, lectures and webinars the web version is more convenient: it accepts a large file by drag and drop and does not break the upload on a poor connection, it resumes from the place where it was interrupted.
How to check and correct the transcript
The bot rereads a long transcript itself: it places punctuation and capital letters, removes obvious recognition errors, but it does not shorten the text or retell it in its own words, so details are not lost in a retelling.
It is easier to check against the original in the bot's mini app: it has a player, and a click on any phrase in the text plays the recording from exactly that place, so you do not need to rewind the video by hand to check a disputed word or name by ear. If the recording has several voices, speaker labels turned on in advance help here too: you can see at once whose line is whose, and it is easier to find the needed moment in a long conversation. The difference between such a transcript and ordinary dictation of text in real time is covered in detail in the article about transcription and voice input.
| Task | Characters | Typing (200 chars/min) | Voice (900 chars/min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| chat reply | 300 | 2 min | 0.5 min |
| 1500 | 8 min | 1.7 min | |
| post or meeting minutes | 4000 | 20 min | 4.4 min |
| article | 10000 | 50 min | 11.1 min |
When the bot does not fit
The Potok bot is a cloud service: recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet. The bot accepts links to Instagram (Reels and posts with video) and TikTok, as well as YouTube, VK Video and RuTube and a whole file.
It also does not fit where the video is not in Russian or where translation of the text into another language is needed: it recognizes only Russian speech, and there is no translation. It tells speakers in a recording apart by the numbers of the lines, not by names, and does not transcribe what is happening during a live broadcast or call, only an already finished recording. Why transcribing a conversation of several people is harder than ordinary dictation of one voice is explained in a separate review (in Russian).
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Besides YouTube, the bot and the web version accept links to VK Video and RuTube: you do not need to download the file to a computer, a link to the video is enough.
Upload it whole: the bot's mini app accepts files of up to 2 GB, and the finished transcript comes as a separate file, TXT or DOCX, and not as text in the chat.
Transcribe a video into text. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Transcribe a video into text you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Transcribe a video into text. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Transcribe a video into text you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Transcribe a video into text. Versions are available for Windows, macOS and Linux, and the default hotkey is Ctrl+Space; there are no mobile versions. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. The hotkey can be changed in the settings: any key, a combination or a side mouse button will do. Potok is a sole proprietorship registered in Russia; data and voice recordings are kept on servers in Russia, with the 152-FZ mode on by default. For Transcribe a video into text you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Transcribe a video into text. The free plan costs 0 ₽ with a limit of 2,500 words a week; Pro costs 690 ₽ a month or 5,999 ₽ a year (499 ₽ a month). Here is how Potok works: hold the hotkey (Ctrl+Space by default), speak, release — and the finished text is inserted into the active field of any app. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Transcribe a video into text you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Transcribe your own recording
Forward a voice message, or send a file or a YouTube, VK Video, RuTube, Instagram or TikTok link to Potok's Telegram bot, and the text arrives in the same chat. 60 minutes per month for free.
Open @potok_now_bot in TelegramPrimary sources: yandex.ru · vc.ru · speech2text.ru · audio-2-text.ru
Transcribe a recording in Telegram
Voice messages, video notes, audio and video are transcribed by Potok's Telegram bot @potok_now_bot: forward it a voice message from any chat, or send a file or a YouTube, VK Video, RuTube, Instagram or TikTok link. A short recording comes back as text in the chat, a long one as a file; timestamps and speaker labels can be turned on. The buttons give a short summary, tasks and deadlines, an answer to a question about the recording and export to TXT, DOCX, PDF or SRT. Large files, up to 2 GB, are easier to upload in the bot's mini app, via the Upload button next to the input field. The bot recognizes 100+ languages (the language is detected automatically); 60 minutes per month are free.