Speech to TextBatch transcription

Output

Learn about the supported output formats for the Speechmatics Batch API

Transcription jobs are processed asynchronously by default: you submit a job, then check its status to see whether it has completed. To block for the result in a single request instead, use Synchronous transcription.

You can also configure notifications to be sent to a webhook when a job is completed. See Notifications for more details.

Check single job status

If you wish to retrieve a particular job, you can do so using the job ID for up to 7 days, after which time it will be automatically deleted in accordance with our Data Retention Policy.

You can make a GET request to check the status of a job as follows:

# $JOB_ID is from the submit command output
curl -L -X GET "https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2/jobs/$JOB_ID" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY"

curl -L -X GET "https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2/jobs/" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY"

This endpoint applies a short default wait, returning as soon as the job reaches a terminal state. Pass the wait query parameter to control the duration, or wait=0 to return immediately. See Synchronous transcription.

The response is a JSON object containing details of the job, with the status field showing whether the job is still processing or not. The possible values are:

running: The job is still processing.
done: The job has been completed. The transcript is available for download at the /jobs/:jobid/transcript endpoint.
rejected: Transcription was not possible. This will be accompanied by an error message.

An example response looks like this:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "job": {
    "config": {
      "notification_config": null,
      "transcription_config": {
        "additional_vocab": null,
        "channel_diarization_labels": null,
        "language": "en"
      },
      "type": "transcription"
    },
    "created_at": "2019-01-17T17:50:54.113Z",
    "data_name": "example.wav",
    "duration": 275,
    "id": "yjbmf9kqub",
    "status": "running"
  }
}

Check multiple job statuses

You can retrieve the status of the 100 most recent jobs submitted in the past 7 days. This is done by making a GET request without a Job ID as follows:

curl -L -X GET "https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2/jobs/" \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY"

curl -L -X GET "https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2/jobs/" `
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY"

A deleted job is not included in the list unless you request it explicitly, as described in the API reference.

Load and process the transcript

The transcript endpoint returns plain text, JSON, or SRT. Request the format using the format query parameter. See the API reference.

A few useful things to know about transcript formats:

The default format is JSON.
Use the format=txt query parameter to get the transcript in plain text. Useful for quick access to the transcript.
Use the format=srt query parameter to get the transcript in SRT format. Useful for displaying the transcript in a subtitle file.
To access other data, including word timestamps, translations, and speech intelligence features, use the default JSON format.

Like the job status endpoint, this endpoint applies a short default wait. Pass the wait query parameter alongside format to block for the transcript instead of polling. See Synchronous transcription.

Transcript response schema

Below is the schema for the transcript response when using the default JSON format.

Refer to the API reference for further details.

format string: Speechmatics JSON transcript format version number.
job JobInfo: Summary information about an ASR job, to support identification and tracking.
created_at string<date-time>: The UTC date time the job was created.
data_name string: Name of data file submitted for job.
duration integer≥ 0: The data file audio duration (in seconds).
id string: The unique id assigned to the job.
tracking TrackingData optional
title string optional: The title of the job.
reference string optional: External system reference.
tags string[] optional
details object optional: Customer-defined JSON structure.
metadata RecognitionMetadata: Summary information about the output from an ASR job, comprising the job type and configuration parameters used when generating the output.
created_at string<date-time>: The UTC date time the transcription output was created.
type JobType"transcription"
transcription_config TranscriptionConfig optional
language string: Language model to process the audio input, normally specified as an ISO language code
domain string optional: Request a specialized model based on 'language' but optimized for a particular field, e.g. 'finance' or 'medical'.
output_locale string optional: Language locale to be used when generating the transcription output, normally specified as an ISO language code
model Model"standard""enhanced""melia-1" optional: Specific model to use in transcription (previously called operating point).
operating_point OperatingPoint"standard""enhanced""melia-1" optional
additional_vocab object[]≤ 20000 items optional: List of custom words or phrases that should be recognized. Alternative pronunciations can be specified to aid recognition.
content string
sounds_like string[] optional
punctuation_overrides object optional: Control punctuation settings.
sensitivity number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 1 optional: Ranges between zero and one. Higher values will produce more punctuation. The default is 0.5.
permitted_marks string[] optional: The punctuation marks which the client is prepared to accept in transcription output, or the special value 'all' (the default). Unsupported marks are ignored. This value is used to guide the transcription process.
diarization "none" | "speaker" | "channel" optional: Specify whether speaker or channel labels are added to the transcript. The default is none.

none: no speaker or channel labels are added.

speaker: speaker attribution is performed based on acoustic matching; all input channels are mixed into a single stream for processing.

channel: multiple input channels are processed individually and collated into a single transcript.
channel_diarization_labels string[] optional: Transcript labels to use when using collating separate input channels.
enable_entities boolean optional: Include additional 'entity' objects in the transcription results (e.g. dates, numbers) and their original spoken form. These entities are interleaved with other types of results. The concatenation of these words is represented as a single entity with the concatenated written form present in the 'content' field. The entities contain a 'spoken_form' field, which can be used in place of the corresponding 'word' type results, in case a spoken form is preferred to a written form. They also contain a 'written_form', which can be used instead of the entity, if you want a breakdown of the words without spaces. They can still contain non-breaking spaces and other special whitespace characters, as they are considered part of the word for the formatting output. In case of a written_form, the individual word times are estimated and might not be accurate if the order of the words in the written form does not correspond to the order they were actually spoken (such as 'one hundred million dollars' and '$100 million').
max_delay_mode "fixed" | "flexible" optional: Whether or not to enable flexible endpointing and allow the entity to continue to be spoken.
audio_filtering_config object optional: Configuration for limiting the transcription of quiet audio.
volume_threshold number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 100 optional: Controls the lower limit of audio volume at which speech and audio events will be transcribed. If the volume limit is very low, then most sound will be passed to the speech recognition engine. Higher numbers will cut out increasing amounts of sound.
transcript_filtering_config object optional: Configuration for applying filtering to the transcription
remove_disfluencies boolean optional: If true, words that are identified as disfluencies will be removed from the transcript. If false (default), they are tagged in the transcript as 'disfluency'.
replacements object[] optional: An array of objects defining custom replacements. Each replacement contains a pair of strings: the text to find from and the text to replace it with to.
from string
to string
speaker_diarization_config object optional: Configuration for speaker diarization
prefer_current_speaker boolean optional: If true, the algorithm will prefer to stay with the current active speaker if it is a close enough match, even if other speakers may be closer. This is useful for cases where we can flip incorrectly between similar speakers during a single speaker section.
speaker_sensitivity number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 1 optional: Controls how sensitive the algorithm is in terms of keeping similar speakers separate, as opposed to combining them into a single speaker. Higher values will typically lead to more speakers, as the degree of difference between speakers in order to allow them to remain distinct will be lower. A lower value for this parameter will conversely guide the algorithm towards being less sensitive in terms of retaining similar speakers, and as such may lead to fewer speakers overall. The default is 0.5.
get_speakers boolean optional: If true, speaker identifiers will be returned at the end of transcript.
speakers SpeakersInputItem[] optional: Use this option to provide speaker labels linked to their speaker identifiers. When passed, the transcription system will tag spoken words in the transcript with the provided speaker labels whenever any of the specified speakers is detected in the audio. A maximum of 50 speakers identifiers across all speakers can be provided.
label string≥ 1 characters: Speaker label, which must not match the format used internally (e.g. S1, S2, etc)
speaker_identifiers Array<string<bytes>>≥ 1 itemsunique items
translation_errors TranslationError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the translation stage.
type "translation_failed" | "unsupported_translation_pair" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
summarization_errors SummarizationError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the summarization stage.
type "summarization_failed" | "unsupported_language" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
sentiment_analysis_errors SentimentAnalysisError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the sentiment analysis stage.
type "sentiment_analysis_failed" | "unsupported_language" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
topic_detection_errors TopicDetectionError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the topic detection stage.
type "topic_detection_failed" | "unsupported_list_of_topics" | "unsupported_language" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
auto_chapters_errors AutoChaptersResultError[] optional: List of errors that occurred in the auto chapters stage.
type "auto_chapters_failed" | "unsupported_language" optional
message string optional: Human readable error message
output_config OutputConfig optional
srt_overrides object optional: Parameters that override default values of srt conversion. max_line_length: sets maximum count of characters per subtitle line including white space. max_lines: sets maximum count of lines in a subtitle section.
max_line_length integer optional
max_lines integer optional
language_pack_info LanguagePackInfo optional: Properties of the language pack.
language_description string optional: Full descriptive name of the language, e.g. 'Japanese'.
word_delimiter string: The character to use to separate words.
writing_direction "left-to-right" | "right-to-left" optional: The direction that words in the language should be written and read in.
itn boolean optional: Whether or not ITN (inverse text normalization) is available for the language pack.
adapted boolean optional: Whether or not language model adaptation has been applied to the language pack.
language_identification LanguageIdentificationResult optional
results LanguageIdentificationResultItem[] optional
alternatives LanguageIdentificationResultAlternative[] optional
language string optional
confidence number optional
start_time number optional
end_time number optional
error enum"LOW_CONFIDENCE""UNEXPECTED_LANGUAGE""NO_SPEECH""FILE_UNREADABLE""OTHER" optional
message string optional
orchestrator_version string optional: Orchestrator version in PEP 440 Format or set to 'version_not_found' as default.
results RecognitionResult[]: An ASR job output item. The primary item types are word and punctuation. Other item types may be present, for example to provide semantic information of different forms.
channel string optional
start_time number<float>
end_time number<float>
volume number<float>≥ 0, ≤ 100 optional: An indication of the volume of audio across the time period the word was spoken.
is_eos boolean optional: Whether the punctuation mark is an end of sentence character. Only applies to punctuation marks.
type "word" | "punctuation" | "entity": New types of items may appear without being requested; unrecognized item types can be ignored.
written_form WrittenFormRecognitionResult[] optional: A WrittenFormRecognitionResult describes a simple object which consists solely of 'word' type entries with a start and end time. It can occur only inside the written_form property of a full RecognitionResult'
alternatives RecognitionAlternative[]: List of possible job output item values, ordered by likelihood.
content string
confidence number<float>
language string
display RecognitionDisplay optional
direction "ltr" | "rtl"
speaker string optional
tags string[] optional
end_time number<float>
start_time number<float>
type "word": What kind of object this is. See #/Definitions/RecognitionResult for definitions of the enums.
spoken_form SpokenFormRecognitionResult[] optional: A SpokenFormRecognitionResult describes a simple object which consists solely of 'word' or 'punctuation' type entries with a start and end time. It can occur only inside the spoken_form property of a full 'RecognitionResult'
alternatives RecognitionAlternative[]: List of possible job output item values, ordered by likelihood.
content string
confidence number<float>
language string
display RecognitionDisplay optional
direction "ltr" | "rtl"
speaker string optional
tags string[] optional
end_time number<float>
start_time number<float>
type "word" | "punctuation": What kind of object this is. See #/Definitions/RecognitionResult for definitions of the enums.
alternatives RecognitionAlternative[] optional: List of possible job output item values, ordered by likelihood.
content string
confidence number<float>
language string
display RecognitionDisplay optional
direction "ltr" | "rtl"
speaker string optional
tags string[] optional
attaches_to enum"previous""next""both""none" optional: Attachment direction of the punctuation mark. This only applies to punctuation marks. This information can be used to produce a well-formed text representation by placing the word_delimiter from language_pack_info on the correct side of the punctuation mark.
speakers SpeakersResultItem[] optional: List of unique speaker identifiers detected in the transcript.
label string≥ 1 characters: Speaker label.
speaker_identifiers Array<string<bytes>>≥ 1 itemsunique items
translations Record<string, TranslationSentence[]> optional: Translations of the transcript into other languages. It is a map of ISO language codes to arrays of translated sentences. Configured using translation_config.
[key: string] TranslationSentence[] optional
start_time number<float> optional
end_time number<float> optional
content string optional
speaker string optional
channel string optional
summary SummarizationResult optional: Summary of the transcript, configured using summarization_config.
content string optional
sentiment_analysis SentimentAnalysisResult optional: The main object that holds sentiment analysis data.
sentiment_analysis object optional: Holds the detailed sentiment analysis information.
segments SentimentSegment[] optional: An array of objects that represent a segment of text and its associated sentiment.
text string optional: Represents the transcript of the analysed segment
sentiment string optional: The assigned sentiment to the segment, which can be positive, neutral or negative
start_time number<float> optional: The timestamp corresponding to the beginning of the transcription segment
end_time number<float> optional: The timestamp corresponding to the end of the transcription segment
speaker string optional: The speaker label for the segment, if speaker diarization is enabled
channel string optional: The channel label for the segment, if channel diarization is enabled
confidence number<float,> optional: A confidence score in the range of 0-1, indicating the model's certainty in the predicted sentiment,
summary SentimentSummary optional: Holds overall sentiment information, as well as detailed per-speaker and per-channel sentiment data.
overall SentimentSummaryDetail optional: Holds the count of sentiment information grouped by positive, neutral and negative.
positive_count integer optional
negative_count integer optional
neutral_count integer optional
speakers SentimentSpeakerSummary[] optional: An array of objects that represent sentiment data for a specific speaker.
speaker string optional
positive_count integer optional
negative_count integer optional
neutral_count integer optional
channels SentimentChannelSummary[] optional: An array of objects that represent sentiment data for a specific channel.
channel string optional
positive_count integer optional
negative_count integer optional
neutral_count integer optional
topics TopicDetectionResult optional: Main object that holds topic detection results.
segments TopicDetectionSegment[] optional: An array of objects that represent a segment of text and its associated topic information.
text string optional
start_time number<float> optional
end_time number<float> optional
topics TopicDetectionSegmentTopic[] optional: Represents a topic and its associated information.
topic string optional
summary TopicDetectionSummary optional: Holds overall information on the topics detected.
overall TopicDetectionSummaryOverall optional: Holds the count of topics detected.
[key: string] integer optional
chapters AutoChaptersResult optional: An array of objects that represent summarized chapters of the transcript
title string optional: The auto-generated title for the chapter
summary string optional: An auto-generated paragraph-style, short summary of the chapter
start_time number optional: The start time of the chapter in the audio file
end_time number optional
audio_events AudioEventItem[] optional: Timestamped audio events, only set if audio_events_config is in the config
type string optional: Kind of audio event. E.g. music
start_time number<float> optional: Time (in seconds) at which the audio event starts
end_time number<float> optional: Time (in seconds) at which the audio event ends
confidence number<float> optional: Prediction confidence associated with this event
channel string optional: Input channel this event occurred on
audio_event_summary object optional: Summary statistics per event type, keyed by type, e.g. music
overall AudioEventSummary optional
[key: string] AudioEventSummaryItem optional: Summary statistics for this audio event type
total_duration number<float> optional: Total duration (in seconds) of all audio events of this type
count number optional: Number of events of this type
channels Record<string, AudioEventSummary> optional: Summary keyed by channel, only set if channel diarization is enabled
[key: string] AudioEventSummary optional
[key: string] AudioEventSummaryItem optional: Summary statistics for this audio event type
total_duration number<float> optional: Total duration (in seconds) of all audio events of this type
count number optional: Number of events of this type

Example response

The following is an example of a transcript response, which you should see as an output of the provided example.wav file used in the code samples in the quickstart.

{
  "format": "2.9",
  "job": {
    "created_at": "2025-06-30T11:43:54.135Z",
    "data_name": "example.wav",
    "duration": 15,
    "id": "650krlru2e"
  },
  "metadata": {
    "created_at": "2025-06-30T11:44:08.133526Z",
    "language_pack_info": {
      "adapted": false,
      "itn": true,
      "language_description": "English",
      "word_delimiter": " ",
      "writing_direction": "left-to-right"
    },
    "orchestrator_version": "2025.06.28+1eb4127132+13.4.0",
    "transcription_config": {
      "language": "en",
      "model": "enhanced"
    },
    "type": "transcription"
  },
  "results": [
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "Welcome",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 1.36,
      "start_time": 0.72,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "to",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 1.44,
      "start_time": 1.36,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 0.98,
          "content": "Speechmatics",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 2.44,
      "start_time": 1.48,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": ".",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "attaches_to": "previous",
      "end_time": 2.44,
      "is_eos": true,
      "start_time": 2.44,
      "type": "punctuation"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "We're",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 3.24,
      "start_time": 3.04,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "delighted",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 3.64,
      "start_time": 3.24,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "that",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 3.8,
      "start_time": 3.64,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "you've",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 4.04,
      "start_time": 3.8,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "decided",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 4.44,
      "start_time": 4.04,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "to",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 4.56,
      "start_time": 4.44,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "try",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 4.92,
      "start_time": 4.56,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "our",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 5.2,
      "start_time": 4.92,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "speech",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 5.48,
      "start_time": 5.2,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "to",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 5.6,
      "start_time": 5.48,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "text",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 5.92,
      "start_time": 5.6,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "software",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 6.56,
      "start_time": 5.92,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "to",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 7.16,
      "start_time": 7.04,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "get",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 7.4,
      "start_time": 7.2,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "going",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 7.88,
      "start_time": 7.4,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": ".",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "attaches_to": "previous",
      "end_time": 7.88,
      "is_eos": true,
      "start_time": 7.88,
      "type": "punctuation"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "Just",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 8.12,
      "start_time": 7.92,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "create",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 8.44,
      "start_time": 8.12,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "an",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 8.64,
      "start_time": 8.48,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "API",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 9,
      "start_time": 8.64,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "key",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 9.36,
      "start_time": 9,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "and",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 9.6,
      "start_time": 9.36,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "submit",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 9.88,
      "start_time": 9.6,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "a",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 10.04,
      "start_time": 9.92,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "transcription",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 10.6,
      "start_time": 10.04,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "request",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 11.04,
      "start_time": 10.6,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "to",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 11.12,
      "start_time": 11.04,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "our",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 11.32,
      "start_time": 11.16,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "API",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 11.88,
      "start_time": 11.32,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": ".",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "attaches_to": "previous",
      "end_time": 11.88,
      "is_eos": true,
      "start_time": 11.88,
      "type": "punctuation"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "We",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 12.36,
      "start_time": 12.24,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "hope",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 12.56,
      "start_time": 12.4,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "you'll",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 12.8,
      "start_time": 12.56,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "be",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 12.88,
      "start_time": 12.8,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "very",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 13.08,
      "start_time": 12.88,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "impressed",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 13.4,
      "start_time": 13.08,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "by",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 13.56,
      "start_time": 13.4,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "the",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 13.68,
      "start_time": 13.56,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "results",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 14.36,
      "start_time": 13.68,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": ".",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "attaches_to": "previous",
      "end_time": 14.36,
      "is_eos": true,
      "start_time": 14.36,
      "type": "punctuation"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "Thank",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 15.08,
      "start_time": 14.8,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": "you",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "end_time": 15.4,
      "start_time": 15.08,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        {
          "confidence": 1,
          "content": ".",
          "language": "en",
          "speaker": "UU"
        }
      ],
      "attaches_to": "previous",
      "end_time": 15.4,
      "is_eos": true,
      "start_time": 15.4,
      "type": "punctuation"
    }
  ]
}

Multilingual transcript output

For a Melia 1 job, the language property on each word reflects the language detected for that word, so it can change across the transcript. For Enhanced and Standard jobs, which transcribe one selected language, the same language is reported for every word.

The example below shows two words in different languages within one transcript:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "alternatives": [
        { "content": "Hello", "confidence": 0.98, "language": "en" }
      ],
      "start_time": 0.20,
      "end_time": 0.52,
      "type": "word"
    },
    {
      "alternatives": [
        { "content": "مرحبا", "confidence": 0.95, "language": "ar" }
      ],
      "start_time": 0.60,
      "end_time": 1.04,
      "type": "word"
    }
  ]
}

For multilingual transcripts, language_pack_info reports the word delimiter and writing direction per language rather than for a single language pack:

{
  "metadata": {
    "language_pack_info": {
      "per_language_word_delimiters": {
        "en": " ",
        "ar": " "
      },
      "per_language_writing_direction": {
        "en": "left-to-right",
        "ar": "right-to-left"
      }
    }
  }
}

per_language_word_delimiters gives the word delimiter for each language in the transcript, and per_language_writing_direction gives its writing direction.

Tracking metadata

You can optionally add tracking metadata to a job when you create it. This can be used for tracking the job through your own management workflow.

The metadata will be returned when you check job status, or get the transcript for a transcription job.

The metadata object can contain the following properties:

`tracking`

title string optional: The title of the job.
reference string optional: External system reference.
tags string[] optional
details object optional: Customer-defined JSON structure.

For example:

{
  "type": "transcription",
  "transcription_config": {
    "model": "enhanced",
    "language": "en"
  },
  "tracking": {
    "title": "ACME Q12018 Statement",
    "reference": "/data/clients/ACME/statements/segs/2018Q1-seg8",
    "tags": [
      "quick-review",
      "segment"
    ],
    "details": {
      "user_type": "agent",
      "client": {
        "name": "ACME Corp",
        "type": "enterprise"
        },
      "seg_start": 963.201,
      "seg_end": 1091.481
    }
  }
}

App usage tracking

First, please contact Support to enable this feature.

For integrations where customers use their own Speechmatics API keys, gain insights into application usage by aggregating data on unique users, processing hours, languages used, and more. Once enabled, use the sm-app query parameter when starting a job. For example:

APP_ID="YourAppID"
API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
PATH_TO_FILE="example.wav"

curl -L -X POST "https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2/jobs/?sm-app=${APP_ID}" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer ${API_KEY}" \
    -F data_file=@${PATH_TO_FILE} \
    -F config='{"type": "transcription","transcription_config": { "model": "enhanced","language": "en" }}'

Next steps

Check single job status​

Check multiple job statuses​

Load and process the transcript​

Transcript response schema​

Example response​

Multilingual transcript output​

Tracking metadata​

tracking​

App usage tracking​

Next steps​

Synchronous transcription

Troubleshooting

API Reference

Inputs

Limits