Apps like Descript, when you export .vtt subtitle files, will not tag the speakers on every 42 character line output, they only voice tag on speaker changes. This does not currently allow podcasting distributors like Pinecast to recognize the speakers and format the transcript accordingly. These platforms expect speaker tagging on ALL separate 42 character subtitle lines. For a Disability podcast like Disability Disrupters that must have captions and transcriptions available for each Episode, this missing feature for Descript is a major manual time waster for me, per Episode. Here’s where I lodged the bug report with Descript in August 2024, before solving it with my janky python script - upvote if you agree that Descript should solve this, so we don’t have to do these crazy script hacks.

Workflow steps

Pre-requisites for getting the episode completed:

• Interviewee bio
• Edited Episode audio
• Edited Episode transcript (for deaf and deafblind)
• Dr Pam’s intro and outro
• Runsheet for what Adverts to include

Setup Zoom meeting

• Zoom meet settings need to be: auto record, set to cloud, people can join anytime
• Once interview finished, wait for recording to process
• Download the RAW audio files from Zoom as a backup (“RAW” folder)

Descript

• Create new audio Project in “Interviews” folder “Episode x - Interview with <Name>”
• RAW interview file - Import audio from Zoom into Descript directly (or download and import each speaker audio separately)
  • Select “Transcribe”
  • add speaker labels <v Dr Pam>nospace
  • Edit transcript
  • At end of audio get rid of “anything else” question (if this makes sense)
• Apply Studio Sound (if necessary, otherwise skip this step)
• Move Interview from “Interviews” folder into “Interviews\Edited interviews” folder
• In “Template-Projects” folder - Duplicate appropriate project template then Move it to “Episodes\In Progress” folder - re-name to “Episode x - Interview with <Name>”
• From the “Interviews\Edited interviews” folder - Open edited interview then copy text & paste edited interview audio (do not transcribe) below “Interview” marker
• Make sure background music in correct place (in Layer)
• Double-check title of entire script is “Episode x -Interview with <Name>”
• Rename the “Interview” marker in the Transcript to “Interview with <Name>”
• Move Interview from “Interviews\Edited Interviews” to “used-in-a-script” folder
• add Dr Pam’s intro, transcribe and edit
  • adjust audio boundaries on timeline (insert gap, make sure audio in full for each section)
• add Dr Pam’s outro, transcribe and edit
  • adjust audio boundaries on timeline (insert gap, make sure audio in full for each section)
• Open interview from “Interviews\Edited Interviews\Used-in-a-script”
  • Check Markers are properly labelled
• Publish - Export - subtitles - edit Episode in Librewriter (check <v speaker> tags)
  • Name vtt file “Episode x - Interview with <Name>”
  • Run Auto-tag py script (to add the speaker labels that are missing in vtt file)
• Publish - Export - audio mp3 - name it EditedInterview
  • include markers
  • check size of audio is less than 135 MB (pinecast plan limit)

test-Podcast-Episodes folder

• Place edited audio and transcripts into that folder

Produce time/text markers for Pinecast show notes section

• Upload edited audio to https://mp3chapters.github.io/
• Copy markers
• paste into pinecast Episode Notes (see below), or keep a copy of these for later

Pinecast

• Title “Interview with … "
• Upload audio mp3
• tick “don’t upload art work”
• Choose 1st of Month 12:01 AM
• Get rid of Episode Notes title
  • Paste show notes (interviewee bios)
  • Paste Text Markers (2 spaces at end of line)
  • Add Footnote credits
• tick link to transcript
• tick link to tip jar
• Save Episode
• Upload episode transcript file
• Speaker A - go into edit mode on transcript text, and change Speaker A combo box to the correct speaker

After Episode has been published (after 8 hours)

• check Apple podcasts (markers good ?)
• check DRNZ website (episode on episode lists page ?)