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Migration guide: AWS Transcribe to AssemblyAI

This guide walks through the process of migrating from AWS Transcribe to AssemblyAI for transcribing pre-recorded audio.

Get Started

Before we begin, make sure you have an AssemblyAI account and an API key. You can sign up for a free account and get your API key from your dashboard.

Side-by-side code comparison

Below is a side-by-side comparison of a basic snippet to transcribe a file by AWS Transcribe and AssemblyAI:

1import time
2import boto3
3
4def transcribe_file(job_name, file_uri, transcribe_client):
5    transcribe_client.start_transcription_job(
6        TranscriptionJobName=job_name,
7        Media={"MediaFileUri": file_uri},
8        MediaFormat="wav",
9        LanguageCode="en-US",
10    )
11
12    max_tries = 60
13    while max_tries > 0:
14    max_tries -= 1
15
16    job = transcribe_client.get_transcription_job(
17        TranscriptionJobName=job_name
18    )
19
20    job_status = job["TranscriptionJob"]["TranscriptionJobStatus"]
21
22    if job_status in ["COMPLETED", "FAILED"]:
23        print(f"Job {job_name} is {job_status}.")
24
25    if job_status == "COMPLETED":
26        print(
27            f"Download the transcript from\n"
28            f"\t{job['TranscriptionJob']['Transcript']['TranscriptFileUri']}."
29        )
30        break
31    else:
32        print(f"Waiting for {job_name}. Current status is {job_status}.")
33        time.sleep(10)
34
35def main():
36    transcribe_client = boto3.client("transcribe")
37    file_uri = "s3://test-transcribe/answer2.wav"
38    transcribe_file("Example-job", file_uri, transcribe_client)
39
40if name == "main":
41    main()

Installation

1import boto3
2import time
3
4transcribe_client = boto3.client("transcribe")

When migrating from AWS to AssemblyAI, you’ll first need to handle authentication and SDK setup:

Get your API key from your AssemblyAI dashboard

Things to know:

  • Store your API key securely in an environment variable
  • API key authentication works the same across all AssemblyAI SDKs

Audio File Sources

1def transcribe_file(job_name, file_uri, transcribe_client):
2    transcribe_client.start_transcription_job(
3        TranscriptionJobName=job_name,
4        Media={"MediaFileUri": file_uri},
5        MediaFormat="wav",
6        LanguageCode="en-US",
7    )

Here are helpful things to know when migrating your audio input handling:

Basic Transcription

1while max_tries > 0:
2    max_tries -= 1
3    job = transcribe_client.get_transcription_job(
4        TranscriptionJobName=job_name
5    )
6    job_status = job["TranscriptionJob"]["TranscriptionJobStatus"]
7    if job_status in ["COMPLETED", "FAILED"]:
8        break
9    time.sleep(10)

Here are helpful things to know about our transcribe method:

  • The SDK handles polling under the hood
  • Transcript is directly accessible via transcript.text
  • English is the default language if none is specified
  • We have a cookbook for error handling common errors when using our API.

Adding Features

1transcribe_client.start_transcription_job(
2    TranscriptionJobName=job_name,
3    Media={"MediaFileUri": file_uri},
4    Settings={
5        "ShowSpeakerLabels": True,
6        "MaxSpeakerLabels": 2
7    }
8)

Key differences:

  • Use aai.TranscriptionConfig to specify any extra features that you wish to use
  • The results for Speaker Diarization are stored in transcript.utterances. To see the full transcript response object, refer to our API Reference.
  • Check our documentation for our full list of available features and their parameters