Transcript with Timestamps

A transcript without timestamps answers "what was said" but not "where." For a video editor hunting a cut point, a researcher coding an interview, a lawyer pinning a statement to a moment in the record, or a content team pulling a quote for a clip, a wall of plain text means scrubbing through the audio anyway — which defeats the point of transcribing it.

Castmagic timestamps every single word during transcription, then lets you export at whatever granularity the job calls for: readable paragraph-level timestamps with speaker labels in TXT, PDF, and DOCX; frame-accurate cue timing in SRT and VTT; and per-utterance start and end times in CSV for anything analytical. One transcription, every timestamp format.

Why a transcript without timestamps is half a transcript

Most transcription tools treat timestamps as an afterthought — a marker every few minutes, or none at all. That works if all you want is a searchable record. It fails the moment you need to go back to the source: verifying a quote against the audio, cutting a clip at the right frame, citing testimony by time, or syncing notes to a lecture recording. The transcript tells you something was said; the timestamp tells you where to find it.

Word-level timing under the hood

Castmagic records the start time of every individual word during transcription. Exports then aggregate that timing to whatever level is useful — paragraphs for reading, cues for captioning, utterances for analysis — rather than approximating from sparse markers. That's why the timestamps in an SRT line up with the audio instead of drifting, and why the CSV can give you a precise start and end time for every utterance.

Which timestamp format is right for your work

For reading and review — TXT, PDF, or DOCX. These exports place timestamps at paragraph level alongside speaker labels, which is the right density for skimming an interview, circulating a formatted PDF of a meeting, or editing the record in Word. Timestamps and speaker labels in TXT are optional toggles, so you can also export clean prose.

For captions and video editing — SRT or VTT. Each cue carries its exact start and end time, so the file drops straight into Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, YouTube, or any player. Editors also use SRT cues as a navigation index: find the line, read its cue time, cut there.

For analysis — CSV. One row per utterance with position, speaker, start time, end time, and text. Load it into a spreadsheet or a script to measure talk-time per speaker, filter every utterance by one participant, or join transcript segments against other time-coded data.

Timestamps and speaker labels together

Knowing when something was said matters most alongside who said it. Castmagic runs speaker diarization on every file, so each timestamped paragraph, cue, and CSV row carries a speaker label. Rename the detected speakers once in the editor and the names flow through to every export. For recordings dense with proper nouns — case names, product terms, participants — custom vocabulary boosts those words and fixes their spelling.

Who relies on timestamped transcripts

Video and podcast editors locate cut points and pull-quote moments without re-watching the footage. Researchers code interviews by time and cite passages precisely. Legal teams reference depositions and hearings by the moment a statement was made. Content teams find the 30 seconds worth clipping from an hour of recording. All of it works in 60+ languages with automatic language detection, and AI presets can layer summaries, key takeaways, and show notes on top of the timestamped transcript.