VideoText workflow guide
When does GoTranscript require timestamps? This guide covers the exact [00:00:00] format, every-2-minutes vs every-speaker-change types, bold formatting, file-relative time, and why the qualification test has no timestamping.
Choose Rev, GoTranscript, TranscribeMe, Scribie, or a custom client specification. Each guideline has distinct rules for verbatim level, speaker label format, timestamp intervals, inaudible notation, and maximum paragraph length.
Clean verbatim removes fillers, false starts, and repetitions for readability. Full verbatim preserves all spoken content. Applying the wrong level is the most common single reason transcripts fail marketplace QA — it cannot be fixed without re-reading the source audio.
A single speaker must have exactly one label format from the first occurrence to the last. Mixed formats (JOHN SMITH / John / J. Smith) require a find-and-replace pass across the full document before any other formatting work.
Rev-style: timestamps every 2 minutes or at each speaker change. GoTranscript: job-dependent — bold [00:00:00] either every 2 minutes or at every speaker change, with no timestamping on the qualification test. TranscribeMe: per-speaker-turn timestamps. Paragraph limits range from 8 lines (Rev) to roughly 500 symbols (GoTranscript).
Verify inaudible notation consistency (all [inaudible] or all [INAUDIBLE], never mixed), check bracket format for crosstalk sections, confirm verbatim level is consistent throughout, and validate that paragraph length does not exceed the client's maximum.
Full hours, minutes and seconds inside square brackets: [00:04:37]. Two digits in every field, including the hours on a short file. Shortened forms such as [4:37] or [00:04] are not accepted.
The stamp itself is bold, as are speaker labels and every time-stamped tag. A stamp with the right digits in plain text still reads as unformatted to an editor.
Where the job asks for stamps every 2 minutes, place each one at the 2-minute mark at the nearest sentence boundary rather than mid-sentence.
Where the job asks for a stamp at every speaker change, the stamp sits with the label at the start of each turn, so every turn opens with a bold label and a bold time.
A bold name or role, a colon and one single space — Interviewer: — never a tab. Where you are fairly but not certainly sure who is speaking, prefix a question mark: ?David:.
Reduce revision risk before submitting marketplace jobs. A pre-delivery formatting check catches the label inconsistency, timestamp format error, or verbatim level mismatch that triggers a QA rejection and unpaid revision.
Create a consistent formatting baseline across a team of transcriptionists working on the same client account — so reviewers spend time on content accuracy, not fixing label formats.
Turn raw AI-generated transcripts into readable interview documents: speaker structure, consistent punctuation, accurate paragraph breaks, and timestamps that let readers verify context in the source recording.
Periodic stamps running through the file while speaker-change stamps are also inserted at every turn. Only one type is correct per job, and mixing them reads as a transcriber who did not check the instructions.
A transcriber picking up minutes 30 to 60 restarts at [00:00:00]. The merged file then carries two overlapping timelines, and every stamp in the second half is wrong by half an hour.
A draft written with bold labels and stamps is pasted into a plain-text field before submission. Every formatting rule in the file disappears at once, with nothing in the output to flag it.
Correctly formatted timestamps applied to the qualification test, which asks for none. The formatting is right and the judgement is wrong, which still costs the submission.
Rev-style workflows commonly stamp at fixed intervals or at speaker changes as a house default, and do not require bold. GoTranscript inherits neither: the type comes from the job instructions and the bold is mandatory.
Services that stamp every speaker turn as standard train a habit that only fits half of GoTranscript jobs. Applying it to a periodic job produces a file full of stamps the client did not ask for.
Subtitle formats carry a start and end pair per cue (00:00:00,000 to 00:00:02,400) with milliseconds. A GoTranscript stamp is a single point in time inside a text transcript — no end value, no milliseconds, no cue numbering.
[00:00:00] — full hours:minutes:seconds in square brackets, always bold. When the job requires timestamping, insert stamps every 2 minutes OR at every speaker change (per job instructions). Time is file-relative: a 20–30 minute segment starts at 20:00:00, not 00:00:00.
No. The official qualification test is clean verbatim with no timestamping. Adding timestamps to the test transcript is a common failure — only add them when the job instructions require it.
Check the job instructions. GoTranscript supports two timestamping types: periodic (every 2 minutes) or at every speaker change. Only one type applies per file. Using the wrong type causes QA failures.
Yes. Timestamps, speaker labels, and all time-stamped tags ([inaudible 00:00:00], [pause 00:00:00], etc.) must be bold. Plain-text exports should preserve bold formatting where the editor supports it.
When you transcribe a segment of a longer file (e.g. minutes 20–30), timestamps start at [00:20:00], not [00:00:00]. Always consider the whole file position when placing stamps.