Transcribe PBS to Text
Public Broadcasting Service with documentaries and news.
Works with publicly available audio & video. DRM-protected content is not supported.
How to Transcribe PBS
1
Copy the PBS video URL from the website.
2
Paste it into STT.ai and choose your language and model.
3
Click Transcribe to generate a full transcript of the program.
Why Use STT.ai for PBS?
Just Paste a URL
No downloads or extensions needed
10+ AI Models
Whisper, Canary, and more
100+ Languages
Auto-detection or manual
Export TXT, SRT, VTT, DOCX
Subtitles, notes, documents
What to do with your PBS transcript
Article-ready text from broadcasts
Editable transcript with timestamps for rapid story turnaround.
Quote-with-timestamp archive
Every line carries a millisecond timestamp for fact-checking.
Multilingual reporting
Translate foreign-language coverage on the same page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Paste the PBS article or broadcast URL into STT.ai. We extract the embedded audio or video segment, transcribe it with timestamps, and make every quote searchable — useful for sourcing and citation against the original PBS clip. Example PBS link format: https://www.pbs.org/video/example-episode-abc123/
No — STT.ai reads publicly-available PBS content directly from the URL. Private or age/region-gated PBS content has to be downloaded manually with the original account first, then uploaded as a file.
Yes. STT.ai includes 600 free minutes/month — usable for PBS URLs exactly like uploaded files. Paid plans starting at $5/month extend per-item length limits.
Free users can transcribe PBS content up to 1 hour per item; paid plans extend that to 8+ hours per item, enough for the longest PBS segment you're likely to hit.
For pre-recorded PBS content, paste the URL and we do the rest. For a live PBS stream, switch to STT.ai's live-transcription tool — point it at the stream and watch captions appear in real time.
DRM-protected PBS content cannot be transcribed — we don't bypass DRM. For those, capture the audio through your OS (system audio recorder, OBS) and upload the resulting file directly.
Yes. 100+ languages, auto-detected by default. For mixed-language PBS content, our models handle language switches mid-clip.
Yes. Speaker diarization runs on every PBS transcription — Speaker 1, Speaker 2, … labels you rename in the editor. Works for PBS interviews, debates, and panels.
Yes. Every PBS transcript exports as SRT or VTT, ready to upload back to PBS or any video platform — and our burn-subtitles tool can hardcode them onto the clip for reposting.
PBS URL transcription accuracy tracks the source audio quality — clean studio audio reaches 93-95% with our best models; low-bitrate streams or noisy field recordings land lower.
PBS transcripts are private to your account by default. Pro plans add client-side encryption — even STT.ai can't read them without your key. Source audio is deleted after transcription.
Yes. Submit multiple PBS URLs through the REST API or the in-app batch upload — each is queued and you're emailed when it finishes. Useful for bulk-processing a set of PBS links in one go.
Beyond PBS, STT.ai supports 1,300+ platforms — including CNN, BBC, Reuters, and other news outlets. The /transcribe/ directory lists every supported source.