Beginner tutorial on AWS transcribe with a recorded file during classroom

I've started school at distance for a month with recorded sessions. Going back on premise would be slightly challenging with all the setup I had. Big monitor, larger screen estate and a much more powerful computer. It got me thinking, why not record the audio during class. I have spent sometime searching for an ideal app to do the recording and surprisingly Windows already have one. It's surprisingly good! The most important feature is to mark an audio track and it's there. The output file is a mp4.

With a 2 hours audio file on hand, let's get started with AWS Transcribe!!!

1 - We first need to create a s3 bucket and import our audio file there. On your AWS management console, search for s3 and create a bucket name XYZ. You can leave all the settings as default.

2 - Once the bucket is created, click on it and start uploading your file. My file is 2 hours long, you can upload a maximum file of 4 hours.

3 - We have one major part done. Let's get to Transcribe via the AWS management console. Look for "Transcription jobs" on the left pane and click on it. Enter a job settings name, I used "2022-vng-transcribe". On input data section, click on the input file location on s3, you'll have a helper to guide you to your s3 file. Leave everything on default, create the job and let the service do its job.

4 - Once your job is done, the status will change to Complete. It took me about 15 minutes and cost me "around" 1.40$.

What you get after the processing is the text and a json file available to download.

For a beginner with AWS services, it was extremely easy to perform this task. If your planning to try, I've included some links regarding the cost and to the actual documentation. What is important to take into account, it is the length of your file and the filetype. When recording make sure that your not in a noisy environment. In my situation, my laptop fan was running non stop, therefore I couldn't get a good result. I'll definitely try again with my phone or with another appropriate hardware.

I hope you enjoyed this short tutorial!

Here are some links, on the pricing and on the documentation.