Venice Transcription (/audio/transcriptions)

POST /api/v1/audio/transcriptions takes an audio file and returns text. It's OpenAI-compatible with multipart/form-data — the OpenAI SDK's audio.transcriptions.create() works unchanged.

| Method | Path | Auth | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| POST | /api/v1/audio/transcriptions | Bearer key or x402 (SIWX) | multipart/form-data, file field file, max 25 MB. Billed per second of audio. |

Use when

• You need STT (speech-to-text) for voice notes, meetings, podcasts, short audio.
• You need word/segment timestamps for subtitles or chapters.
• You want to pick between Venice-hosted Parakeet, Whisper-family models, ElevenLabs Scribe, or xAI STT.

For video, there is no transcription endpoint any more — POST /video/transcriptions is retired and returns 410. Extract the audio track and send it here, or ask a video-capable chat model via venice-chat.

Minimal request

curl https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/audio/transcriptions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VENICE_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@./meeting.m4a" \
  -F "model=nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3" \
  -F "response_format=json" \
  -F "timestamps=false"

{ "text": "Alright everyone, let's kick off the meeting...", "duration": 184.2 }

With timestamps=true, the JSON also carries a timestamps object (see below).

Request (multipart/form-data)

Only the fields below are read; anything else in the form is ignored.

| Field | Type | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| file | binary | — | Required. Real file part (no base64). Accepted: wav/wave, flac, m4a, aac, mp4, mp3, ogg/oga, webm. Checked by extension/MIME and then by binary signature. Max 25 MB. |
| model | string | — | Send it. The OpenAPI schema lists nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 as default, but that default is never applied: omitting model returns 400 "model is required". |
| response_format | json / text | json | Only these two. text returns a text/plain body with just the transcript. |
| timestamps | bool (true/false as form string) | false | Adds timestamps to the JSON response. |
| language | string | — | ISO 639-1 hint (en, ja, …). Forwarded by Whisper, Wizper, Scribe and xAI STT; ignored by Parakeet (auto-detects). |

Response

{
  "text": "…",
  "duration": 184.2,
  "timestamps": {
    "word":    [{ "word": "Alright", "start": 0.12, "end": 0.48 }],
    "segment": [{ "text": "Alright everyone…", "start": 0.12, "end": 4.9 }],
    "char":    [{ "char": "A", "start": 0.12, "end": 0.15 }]
  }
}

duration (seconds) and timestamps are optional. Which timestamp arrays appear depends on the model:

| Model | Timestamp granularity |
|---|---|
| openai/whisper-large-v3 | segment + word |
| fal-ai/wizper | segment |
| elevenlabs/scribe-v2 | word |
| stt-xai-v1 | word |
| nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 | may include segment, word and/or char |

Models

All five are in the live GET /models?type=asr list. Price is model_spec.pricing.per_audio_second.usd.

| Model ID | Privacy | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 | private | Venice-hosted, fast. Ignores language. |
| openai/whisper-large-v3 | private | Multilingual; language hint; segment + word timestamps. |
| fal-ai/wizper | private | Whisper v3 variant; language hint; segment timestamps. |
| elevenlabs/scribe-v2 | anonymized | language hint; word timestamps. |
| stt-xai-v1 | anonymized | language hint; word timestamps. |

A key with modelPrivacy: PRIVATE_ONLY gets 403 on the anonymized ones (PRIVATE_TEXT keys are not restricted here). Failed transcriptions are not charged.

OpenAI SDK

import OpenAI from 'openai'
import fs from 'node:fs'

const client = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env.VENICE_API_KEY,
  baseURL: 'https://api.venice.ai/api/v1',
})

const out = await client.audio.transcriptions.create({
  file: fs.createReadStream('meeting.m4a'),
  model: 'openai/whisper-large-v3',
  response_format: 'json',
  language: 'en',
  // @ts-expect-error — Venice-specific extra, passes through multipart
  timestamps: true,
})

console.log(out.text)

Long files

There's no server-side chunking, and uploads are capped at 25 MB. Split long recordings client-side (on silence, or fixed segments), transcribe each chunk, then concatenate with offset timestamps.

ffmpeg -i long.mp3 -f segment -segment_time 600 -c copy chunk_%03d.mp3

Errors

| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 400 | Missing model, bad params (e.g. response_format not json/text), no file part (including a JSON body instead of multipart → "No audio file provided"), unsupported extension/MIME, or unrecognized binary signature. |
| 401 | Authentication failed. |
| 402 | Insufficient balance. Bearer → {"error":"Insufficient USD or Diem balance…"}, or "API key USD|DIEM spend limit exceeded…" when the key's own cap is hit (no code field); x402 → PAYMENT_REQUIRED. |
| 403 | A PRIVATE_ONLY key calling an anonymized model, or region restriction. |
| 404 | Unknown model. |
| 413 | File larger than 25 MB ({"code":"PAYLOAD_TOO_LARGE","error":"File exceeds the maximum allowed size of 25 MB."}). |
| 422 | Upstream provider couldn't process the audio (zero-length, silent, corrupt, unsupported format or language, provider-side refusal). No suggested_prompt. |
| 429 | Rate limited. |
| 500 | Inference failure. |
| 502 | Temporary upstream ASR failure — {"error":"Audio transcription failed due to a temporary upstream error. Please retry."} (no code field). Retry with backoff. |
| 503 | Model temporarily offline — retry with jitter. |

See venice-errors for body shapes and retry strategy.

Gotchas

• Always send model — the documented default never applies.
• file must be a real multipart file part. JSON + base64 is not supported.
• There is no verbose_json, srt or vtt. For subtitles, use response_format=json + timestamps=true and render the timings yourself. text drops timestamps entirely.
• Check which granularity your model returns before building on timestamps.word vs timestamps.segment.
• A file with a valid extension but a non-audio binary signature is rejected; re-encode to a standard profile (e.g. MP3 44.1 kHz or 16 kHz).
• On 429, back off; throttle big batches rather than firing everything in parallel.