Record audio and video

A recording in Pangur is an item in your library with an audio or video file attached: an oral-history interview, a lecture, a film. You can make the recording in Pangur for Mac or on an iPhone or iPad, or add a file you already have. Pangur does not transcribe a recording when you add it. You ask for a transcript when you want one, and the minutes it takes count against your plan.

Recording on a MacCopy Anchor Link

1. In Pangur for Mac, open your library, and open the collection you want the recording in.
2. Choose Record an interview or lecture in the library toolbar. The Record audio window opens.
3. Choose Record. Use Pause and Resume as needed, and Stop (or Return) when you have finished.
4. Fill in the details. Reference type suggests Interview, Presentation and Audio recording first and offers every other type below them. The fields change with the type and can include the title, date, place and running time. Add the people recorded under Creators, each with a Role.
5. Choose Add to library, or Discard to throw the recording away.

Pangur makes a new item for the recording in the project and collection the library was showing. It suggests a title from the type and the time you started, such as "Interview, 5 Nov 2026, 14:32", and fills in the running time. If you allow Pangur to use your location, it records where the recording was made in the item's Extra field.

The Mac keeps the recording on disk until it has been sent. If sending fails, the window tells you the recording is still on this Mac and offers Try again.

The first recording asks for access to the microphone. If you refused it, allow it in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Microphone.

Recording on iPhone or iPadCopy Anchor Link

You can start a recording from Capture, with Record audio, or from Library, with Add to library and then Record audio.

Use Record, Pause, Resume and Stop, or Record again to start over. Recording carries on with the screen locked. A phone call or another app pauses it, and it carries on when the interruption ends or when you tap Resume.

A recording started from an item is added to that item. Otherwise Pangur makes a new item for it, filled in from the date and place. Recording works offline, because the file simply waits in the upload queue and is sent when the device is online again.

Adding recordings you already haveCopy Anchor Link

On the web or a Mac, drop audio or video files on your library, as described in Add files you already have. Pangur accepts MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV, FLAC, Ogg, Opus, AIFF and WMA audio, and MP4, M4V, MOV, WebM, MKV, AVI and Ogg video.

On a Mac, videos you select in the Import media window are added from Photos as recordings (importing from Photos). On iPhone or iPad, choose Add to library, then Videos from Photos.

Videos on YouTube and VimeoCopy Anchor Link

When you save a YouTube or Vimeo video with the browser extension, Pangur saves a reference to the video and keeps the captions the video publishes, with their times, as its transcript. The video plays from its own site. Pangur does not transcribe such a video, so it uses none of your transcription minutes, and if the video published no captions it simply has no transcript.

Playing a recordingCopy Anchor Link

Open the item to play the recording in its Read tab. You can change the playback speed from 0.5× to 2×, and click the waveform to move through audio. Video can show the transcript as captions.

Some files cannot be played in a browser as they are, some MKV video for instance. Pangur then makes a playable copy in the background, which takes a few minutes, and keeps the original as it is.

Asking for a transcriptCopy Anchor Link

1. Open the recording's item.
2. In the transcript pane, read the note above the button. It names the outside service and model the audio will be sent to and, for a video, the model that describes what is on screen. Check that the people recorded agreed to this.
3. Check the minutes you have left this month, which the pane shows.
4. Choose Transcribe.

Pangur's server sends the audio to the transcription service in parts of up to 30 minutes and joins the results together. With the default service, the transcript marks each speaker with a letter; the other services Pangur can use give no speakers. For a video, Pangur also describes what is on screen at each change of scene and adds those descriptions as lines labelled "On screen". The pane shows that transcription is in progress until the transcript is ready.

Once it is ready, you can click any line to play the recording from that point. Pangur also reads the transcript into its index, so that the recording's words can be searched and Ask can use them.

An administrator chooses the transcription service and can leave it off. If it is off, the pane says that transcription is not set up on this server.

Correcting a transcriptCopy Anchor Link

Choose Correct to edit the transcript and give the speakers names under Speakers, then Save correction. Pangur saves the correction as a new version of the transcript and keeps the machine transcript beside it, and the pane's heading shows the version. Correcting a transcript uses no minutes.

Note that speaker letters start again in each 30-minute part, so the same person can have different letters in different parts of a long recording. Renaming them under Correct joins them up.

Transcription minutesCopy Anchor Link

Transcription is done with Pangur's own accounts at the transcription service, and each recording's length counts against the plan of the person who chose Transcribe. The minutes reset at the start of each calendar month (UTC).

A recording counts for its full length, and transcribing the same recording again counts again. Corrections and published captions are free.

When less than a minute is left, Pangur refuses to transcribe and says that the month's minutes are used up. A recording longer than the minutes you have left is also refused, and the message gives both figures. The transcript pane and the Usage page both show the minutes left this month. These figures are defaults that an administrator can change (plans and limits).

In an organisation's project, which not every account offers, a member with the viewer role cannot transcribe or correct a recording.

AssistantsCopy Anchor Link

An assistant connected over MCP can read a transcript with the get_transcript tool, but it cannot start a transcription. Only a person can ask for one, from the recording's item.