Descript

Avantages

We do a smaller podcast, and it’s cut the editing time in half. The ability to automatically delete filler words and audio gaps has been a major timesaver and the software keeps evolving. The company listens to users and makes changes accordingly. Looking forward to see where it goes from here.

Inconvénients

I have no real complaints. The editing tool can sometimes be a bit wonky, but I think it’s note user error than a problem with the tool.

Avantages

It's very easy to use as a novice. There are lots of functionality buried within that I know I'm not utilizing, but I don't need it to get my job done. I love the ability to edit the audio by editing text and adding music onto my podcast voice files is straightforward. This is by far the easiest editing tool I've tried.

Inconvénients

There are lots of features that I know exist but that I don't see or that I don't know how or when I should use them. This is on me to learn, but I do wish tools would provide access to mini-tutorials from within the main workspace so that when you are working you could better identify whether that functionality you've never used might help to solve your problem.

Avantages

The product is pretty easy to use straight off the bat but its when you get the transcripts back that things really get interesting. The way the text and audio/video files are linked is totally special. You can change one and the other follows. You can copy and paste text and the media comes along too. Once you've compiled your rough you can export

Inconvénients

Software feels a bit slower and bloated now due to the addition of the editing features - and a bit more sensitive to handle. I have to be more accurate when I click!

Avantages

Being able to edit text and have that automatically edit the audio is an amazing time saver. I was skeptical of the quality of edits this would provide, but 95% of the time the cross fades etc. it adds are spot on. For that 5% of the time where it's not quite right, you can easily adjust things using the waveform editor.

Inconvénients

The transcription service seems to have been primarily trained on white/European-descent speakers. I've edited several episodes with African guests and the transcription is awful. You can still use it to edit the audio OK, with some laughs at the mistakes it made. But, if you want to publish a transcript then you're basically rewriting the whole thing.

Alternatives envisagées 

Audacity, Pro Tools et REAPER

Pourquoi passer à Descript

The ability to edit a transcript (with fallback to waveform editing) is a complete game changer. I can focus on the content and just drop out to audio editing when I need to. I still use other DAWs later in the process, but Descript makes that big edit of 90+min of raw audio for each episode so much more manageable.

Avantages

1) I like the realistic-sounding voices
2) I like the large selection of voices
3) I like the ability to change the pitch and speed of each voice
4) I like the male and female options
5) I like the fact that you can copy and paste large amounts of text at one time to edit
6)

Inconvénients

1) The learning curve can be a bit much
2) Not enough tutorials that get right to the point

Avantages

I like that I can edit a video based on the visual transcription, The AI and that while I'm recording I get a transcription simultaneously.

The features I desire most are a dark mode feature, a chroma key feature so I can add light overlay and animation. I would also like a pause feature added to screen recording and voice recording because I use this to help me think in between recording without stopping the session. And please fix bugs such a lagging.

And the integrations I would recommend are Audacity, Davinci Resolve, and Anchor FM because that is what I use.

Inconvénients

Sometimes there are glitches if I am working in multiple windows and Ill get error codes. Sometimes it's hard to place tracks on the timeline, You click where you want it to go and it goes somewhere else in the project. I want some filler words to stay included and it's hard for me to figure out how to keep them. When I record audio and mess up, the overdub function doesn't pop up when I right-click. I wish the zoom and pan were smoother looking.

Avantages

It is user friendly and doesn't require much experience in video and audio editing. Filler words and word gap detection and removal are great features. The export and publish features allow for sharing and publishing the content to other applications. It transcribes very fast and it's great in identifying and assigning speakers. It is easy to cut and paste words while moving the audio waveforms. It also does a great job of matching separate audio files.

Inconvénients

Stability of the software is a great concern. Sometimes it just freezes and you can't access the project you are working on. There is also more that can be done on the sound effects.

Avantages

What I love the most is that when you delete audio from the timeline, it never actually disappears. You can easily go back in and re-add something you took out earlier. It doesn't rely on undo only, if you took out a sentence early on and decided after half an hour of editing you want that sentence back in, its right there. Incredible.

Inconvénients

I don't like the organization on the home page, I don't quite understand the folders. I like organization and not being able to archive my finished edits versus the edits I still need to do is a bit frustrating but easy to overlook!

Avantages

The quick auto transcription was really a game-changer for editing audio.

Inconvénients

There was a little learning curve for figuring out playback, but they've since fixed it.

Avantages

How I can automatically transcribe my videos then translate them in an easy editor before uploading to youtube. Also I like how it has a generous free to use model.

Inconvénients

Well, not supporting the Arabic language mainly :((

Avantages

Taking out filler words takes only a few seconds - this is an amazing feature that can save HOURS of time. Not only does it work for audio, but the video is nearly seamless when using this feature.

Inconvénients

Due to it being on the cloud, the video is slow to respond when editing.

Alternatives envisagées 

Adobe Audition

Pourquoi choisir Descript 

The text features

Pourquoi passer à Descript

I still use these other products for recording and final editing where I compile the podcast, but for editing audio this is my prefered platform.

Avantages

The ability to edit an interview or podcast just by editing the text is incredible.
The workflow is fairly straight forward – import audio file, choose how to transcribe, wait…, edit the transcript & audio in various ways, export or publish as needed.

Inconvénients

The automated transcription is good, but not great. There are always little errors that seem obvious to a human – capitalize the first letter in a sentence, don't capitalize a word in the middle of a sentence, abbreviate doctor as Dr. when a name follows, etc. – and they seem to always show up, even when they've been corrected previously, so it's unclear whether the 'machine' is actually 'learning'.
The app appears to not be built as a native app for macOS which means it lacks certain core features. The most annoying to me is that the window always opens in the default size (i.e. small) and never remembers the sizing or positioning that I choose every time I open it.
The developers are rapidly adding features, but almost too quickly. Once I get used to a feature or function, it doesn't take long for the menu item to be changed or moved (Share, Export, Publish all do similar–though different–things, and have each had their turn as a unique menu item or being grouped together in various ways). I got very efficient at correcting the transcription (which, unfortunately, must be done frequently) until they changed the entire process of editing the transcript.

Avantages

I love that Descript makes editing video and audio content so easy. And the transcriptions are so accurate it's scary! This software has saved me countless hours but more importantly removes so many barriers that keep people from getting started with creating video and audio content.

Inconvénients

The editor UI is a bit clunky and compressed, I feel like the editor area should be larger which might make it even easier to use.

Avantages

A Google Docs-like editor for modifying video literally feels like living in the future. I am not a professional video editor, and so I find it incredibly useful to be able to my own quick edits and rough cuts - especially for video content for social.

Inconvénients

I occasionally find that it is hard to get it to do exactly what I'm trying to do - which is the downside of such a powerful intuitive interface - if you don't want to do the obvious thing, it can be challenging to figure out how to work around (e.g. splitting audio and video tracks etc). But these are minor niggles.

Avantages

I can make professional sounding and looking video ON MY OWN. IT's not quite the same as hiring a videographer, but for $30 a month, it's pretty amazing!

Inconvénients

I feel like the learning curve is slightly higher than Descript leads on for it to be. But that said, the free workshops they offer and their interactive tutorials were a huge help.

Alternatives envisagées 

Loom

Pourquoi passer à Descript

I liked how they talked about it.

Avantages

I really like the automatic transcription, and the ease of clicking to remove pauses, "oohs" "ums", etc.

Inconvénients

Steep learning curve now and then depending on the feature. You need a decent internet connection, and even then it can seem a bit slow. But this is to be expected with media editing.

Avantages

transcribing and editing, I like fact that it's easy to edit audio files by editing the transription

Inconvénients

I wish that there was option to automatically transcribe when you upload an audio file. also if there was an option to automatically take out filler words, that would be helpful

Avantages

Descript has many amazing features - even ones that I would have never thought of to wish for. Here are some of the features that most impressed me.

I love being able to edit video or audio recordings simply by editing the transcript. You can edit within the same file, or you can open another file in a separate window and copy/paste the sections you want from the original file - which remains intact.
Descript's filler word and "dead air" removal are pretty amazing as well.
The option to export a format that is editable in Adobe Premiere Pro comes in very handy. Currently, my workflow is to get the main video edit done in Descript, and then fine tune and add additional elements in Premiere. In fact, I had used Descript's Marker feature to indicate section headers that I was going to add in Premiere. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Descript's Markers translate directly to annotated markers in Premiere, making it really easy for me to find the spots to insert section graphics and which header cards to put where.
Descript's built-in screen recorder has been very helpful for grabbing b-roll from websites. I even used it to show the Descript team some minor challenges I was having with their app.

Inconvénients

The accuracy of the automatic transcription can be a bit hit or miss. British accents are notoriously problematic. Not only does the app misinterpret words, but the rhythm of the person's speech can cause the app to put the wrong punctuations in all the wrong places.

If the transcript needs a lot of editing, I'll put the whole transcript in Edit Mode. But I often need to play back a section of audio to know how to correct it. Playback doesn't seem to work in Edit Mode, and it's very cumbersome to switch back and forth.

I often need to add captions to the exact same clip in two different formats for social media - e.g. square and vertical. Simply uploading the caption file I had exported from Descript for the first clip to the second clip didn't work as I would have expected.

The Descript developers are continually updating their app - which is both good and bad. It seems like every time you open it, some feature is new or modified when you haven't even had a chance to get comfortable with the way things were.

Avantages

Transcription, text search, the ability to use the software effortlessly means this is a crucial piece of software to me both personally and professionally. I love the feature of after transcription, clicking on a word and playing the video from there, such a simple feature but I am sure was very hard to implement from a programming perspective.

Inconvénients

I think it would be great to see a thumbnail overview of projects currently being worked on, having that option as well as list view would be very helpful to me. Sometimes the software can be buggy in terms of asking something to be transcribed and it says this cannot be completed at this time. The other thing I like least is after you've imported multiple files and transcribed them, the software can re-order them, then the videos and transcription are out of sequence, there is no easy way to re-order them and get them to where you want them to be.

Avantages

Descript is changing the way the next generation will make podcasts. And for old dogs like me too! It's a refreshing break from the DAW-focused world we live in today.

Inconvénients

It's still a bit buggy on my M1 Mac, with frequent crashes/restarts. Always recoverable, but it does make me reticent to more integrate the tool into my workflow.

Avantages

Using the transcription to edit audio and video completely changes the game - so much time is saved by being able to use the text to guide exactly when to clip.

Inconvénients

Responsiveness is still a bit laggy, and compared to other multi-track editors, this still feels at times unwieldy. Transcriptions could also be more accurate, as going through and changing them can take quite a lot of time.

Avantages

What I like the most about using Descript, is that it allows me to use 1 tool for many of my needs. Previously I would have to use 3-4 different sites/tools to get the job done. It also allows me to make media (podcasts) more on my own time, instead of relying on freelancers and others.

Inconvénients

It does seem to take a lot for my computer to process using Descript. I haven't run into any issues yet and have an upgraded computer, but could see an issue if I'm traveling or had less capacity.

Avantages

A must use tool for any podcast company. Editing has never been more streamlined.

Inconvénients

Video editing the s close but I use three cameras and two to three audio sources. Multicam needs to be more streamlined

Avantages

I have been using Descript for a while now, and have noticed a new series of features being added to the platform.

However, even though those additions have been more than welcome, what I consider the platform's top feature is something that has been at its core for quite some time: Descript's transcription tool.

In particular, I was really impressed by the accuracy of the transcription tool's AI. If I had to estimate, I would say that the accuracy of the transcriptions Descript has done for my video content has been around 90%, which is really good.

Inconvénients

While the transcription tool has been very good and accurate, I feel that its user interface could be improved.

In fact, it has happened to me a few times to accidentally delete parts of a video (since Descript can be used for video editing too), while I was trying to edit some of the captions/subtitles that were created by the tool's automated transcription feature.

Luckily, I have also noticed this in time but this could have very well have led to a video having missing parts because of this "accident".

Avantages

I love the text editing feature. It makes it so much easier to edit visually which is great and easy.

Inconvénients

The user interface is different than most standard audio editors so there is a learning curve.