Last Updated: February 28, 2025 Migrating from Amazon Transcribe to Salad Transcription API will require you to replace your Amazon Transcribe Python functions with Salad compatible ones. Whilst we do not offer an SDK, we do have example Python functions that you can use in replacement.
FeaturesSaladCloud TranscriptionAmazon Transcribe
Translation✅Requires additional API
Audio Transcription✅✅
Video Transcription✅✅
Multilingual Transcription✅✅
Summarization✅❌
Speaker Identification✅✅
SRT Output✅✅
Transcribe Multiple Files❌❌
Max Length2.5 Hours2GB
Text Sentiment Analysis✅❌
Text Classification✅❌
Custom LLM Prompt✅❌
Custom Vocabulary✅✅

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1. Get your Salad API Key.

  • Open up https://portal.salad.com and sign up/log into your account.
  • Navigate to your profile at the top right, and select API Access. Here you can find your API Key.

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2. Updating job creation API calls.

The Salad Transcription API uses a Job Queue system for processing transcription requests, rather than a Python function that returns the data like Amazon Transcribe. With Salad Transcription API, you’ll use two steps. Submit the job, and then request the results.

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Amazon Transcribe

Your existing Python code for Amazon Transcribe should look something like this: 
import time
import boto3

def transcribe_file(job_name, file_uri, transcribe_client):
    transcribe_client.start_transcription_job(
        TranscriptionJobName = job_name,
        Media = {
            'MediaFileUri': file_uri
        },
        MediaFormat = 'flac',
        LanguageCode = 'en-US'
    )

    max_tries = 60
    while max_tries > 0:
        max_tries -= 1
        job = transcribe_client.get_transcription_job(TranscriptionJobName = job_name)
        job_status = job['TranscriptionJob']['TranscriptionJobStatus']
        if job_status in ['COMPLETED', 'FAILED']:
            print(f"Job {job_name} is {job_status}.")
            if job_status == 'COMPLETED':
                print(
                    f"Download the transcript from\n"
                    f"\t{job['TranscriptionJob']['Transcript']['TranscriptFileUri']}.")
            break
        else:
            print(f"Waiting for {job_name}. Current status is {job_status}.")
        time.sleep(10)


def main():
    transcribe_client = boto3.client('transcribe', region_name = 'us-west-2')
    file_uri = 's3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/my-input-files/my-media-file.flac'
    transcribe_file('Example-job', file_uri, transcribe_client)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

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Salad Transcription API Equivalent

When using Salad Transcription API, you’ll update that job creation function to instead look like this: 
import requests

def salad_transcribe(file, Salad-Api-Key):

    url = "https://api.salad.com/api/public/organizations/{organization_name}/inference-endpoints/transcribe/jobs"

    payload = {
        "input": {
       	    "url": file,
       	    "language_code": "en",
       	    "return_as_file": True,
       	    "word_level_timestamps": True
        }
    }
    headers = {
        "Salad-Api-Key": Salad-Api-Key,
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    }

    response = requests.request("POST", url, json=payload, headers=headers)
    return response

Salad-Api-Key = "{Salad-Api-Key}"

file = "https://example.com/path/to/file.mp3"

job = salad_transcribe(file, Salad-Api-Key)
print(job.text)
  • For this code snippet, you’ll need to insert your Salad Organization name into the API url field.
  • You will also need to insert your Salad API Key we obtained earlier lower down in the code snippet.
  • Put the URL to the file to be transcribed into the file string. Please note that Salad Transcription API can only process files up to 2.5 hours. Make sure the URL provided is to a direct download of the file. Header based security is not compatible with Salad Transcription API, so you’ll need to use a signed URL like that offered by Salad Simple Storage Service.
The response will look like this: 
{
  "id": "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426614174000",
  "inference_endpoint_name": "transcribe",
  "input": {
    "property1": "value1",
    "property2": "value2"
  },
  "metadata": null,
  "organization_name": "example-corp",
  "status": "pending",
  "events": [],
  "create_time": "2025-01-016T19:00:00Z",
  "update_time": "2025-01-016T19:00:00Z"
}

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3. More advanced jobs

If you are utilizing additional features offered by AWS to translate the text to another language, or get SRT subtitles, you can integrate these features into the same call with Salad Transcription API.

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Translation to English:

To activate translation on the same API call as above, just add the translate input parameter. This parameter is only to convert from other languages to English. If you need to translate to another language, you’ll need to use our LLM translation features, also available in the same API call. 
        "input": {
       	    "url": file,
       	    "language_code": "en",
       	    "return_as_file": True,
       	    "word_level_timestamps": True,
            "translate": "to_eng"
        }

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Translation to other languages:

Utilizing our LLM translation services is similar to the direct to English translation, but uses a different input parameter. Instead, you’ll use llm_translation. Eight languages are currently supported for LLM translation: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Hindi, Spanish, and Thai. You can translate to multiple languages at once, and you’ll receive back the original transcription, along with translations in all the languages requested. 
        "input": {
       	    "url": file,
       	    "language_code": "en",
       	    "return_as_file": True,
       	    "word_level_timestamps": True,
            "llm_translation": "italian, french"
        }

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Get SRT subtitles:

If you’re also using AWS services to get SRT subtitles for your audio, you can do so by simply adding the srt input parameter. It will include the srt file for download when you fetch your job results. 
        "input": {
       	    "url": file,
       	    "language_code": "en",
       	    "return_as_file": True,
       	    "word_level_timestamps": True,
            "llm_translation": "italian, french",
            "srt": True
        }

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4. Obtaining job results

In the response from submitting your job with the above step, you’ll receive the Job ID which is required to obtain the results of your transcription. The Job status and transcription results are combined into a single API call. With this Python function, you’ll check the status, and once the job is completed it will also retrieve the transcription results. 
import json

def get_result(job_id, Salad-Api-Key):
    url = "https://api.salad.com/api/public/organizations/{organization_name}/inference-endpoints/transcribe/jobs/" + job_id

    headers = {"Salad-Api-Key": Salad-Api-Key}

    response = requests.request("GET", url, headers=headers)

    return response

Salad-Api-Key = "{Salad-Api-Key}"

file = "https://example.com/path/to/file.mp3"

job = salad_transcribe(file, Salad-Api-Key)
print(job.text)

data = job.json()
job_id = data['id']

result = get_result(job_id, Salad-Api-Key)
print(result.text)
  • Make sure to again update the organization name above to your organization name.
  • And again make sure to include your Salad API Key.
Once the status of your job has reached succeeded, the output object will include the URL to the completed transcription via a directly downloadable URL. 
{
  "id": "7c425fc0-dd3d-4c6c-8b6a-a010187492dd",
  "input": {
    "url": "https://example.com/path/to/file.mp3",
    "language_code": "en",
    "return_as_file": True,
    "word_level_timestamps": True
  },
  "inference_endpoint_name": "transcribe",
  "status": "succeeded",
  "events": [
    {
      "action": "created",
      "time": "2025-01-22T15:57:26.0815348+00:00"
    },
    {
      "action": "started",
      "time": "2025-01-22T15:57:26.2061428+00:00"
    },
    {
      "action": "succeeded",
      "time": "2025-01-22T15:58:13.9323189+00:00"
    }
  ],
  "organization_name": "salad",
  "output": {
    "url": "https://storage-api.salad.com/organizations/salad/files/transcription/73b2ee75-664e-4332-a853-9210dde5c5fd?token=ac34664a-088d-4c72-b53c-c99cfbf538",
    "duration_in_seconds": 320.4135,
    "duration": 0.09,
    "processing_time": 46.076966285705566
  },
  "create_time": "2025-01-22T15:57:26.0815348+00:00",
  "update_time": "2025-01-22T15:58:13.9323189+00:00"
}