# Read and verify a transcript result

> What the transcript screen shows, why RoughCut flags time ranges instead of dropping them, and how to check the flagged parts.
>
> Verified against the current RoughCut app on 28 August 2026
> https://www.roughcuteditor.com/docs/transcript-results

The result screen opens with a Your transcript is ready banner and two exports, Export SRT… and Export Text…. It shows exactly three statistics: the word count, the duration, and the detected language in uppercase, such as EN or AR. Where RoughCut could not transcribe a region cleanly it keeps that audio and flags the time range rather than silently dropping it, under a header that counts the flagged sections and tells you to listen before trusting them. Two flag kinds appear — couldn't transcribe cleanly and transcription may have degraded — with different technical causes but the same required action: listen to those ranges and judge them yourself. The transcript body is selectable and follows the direction of the detected text, so Arabic renders right to left. RoughCut does not include a full transcript editor in the current version, and a flagged section is not necessarily wrong.

## What the screen shows

A finished Transcribe Only job opens on its result. The banner reads `Your transcript is ready`, followed by two export buttons — the prominent `Export SRT…` and the secondary `Export Text…` — a statistics row, any flagged ranges, and then the transcript itself.

The screen's own line under the banner states the design principle: sections the model could not hear cleanly are flagged below, and nothing was silently dropped.

## The three statistics

RoughCut shows exactly three numbers. There is no confidence score, no speaker count, and no accuracy percentage, because the app does not measure those.

| Statistic | What it is | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Word count | The number of words in the transcript | Counts words, not characters or lines |
| Duration | The length of the transcribed media, in minutes and seconds to one decimal | Formatted like `12:04.6` |
| Detected language | The language the transcriber identified, uppercased | For example `EN` or `AR` |

The detected language is what the transcriber concluded, not what you asked for. If you left `Language` on `Auto-detect` and this reads the wrong language, run the file again with `English` or `Arabic` forced. See [Switch between English and Arabic](/docs/language) for the difference between the job language and the interface language.

## Flagged ranges, not silent deletions

This is the part worth understanding, because it is the opposite of what most transcription tools do.

When RoughCut is unsure about a stretch of audio, it **keeps** whatever it produced for that stretch and **flags the time range**. It does not quietly delete the passage, and it does not fill the gap with a confident-looking guess and move on. A warning block appears above the transcript with a header of the form:

```text
3 sections flagged — listen before trusting
```

Below the header, each flagged range is listed on its own line with its start and end timecode and a short reason. A single flagged range uses the singular wording, `1 section flagged — listen before trusting`.

The whole point of the block is to send you to specific timecodes. Open the media, listen to those ranges, and correct the exported transcript by hand where it matters.

## The two flag kinds

Two different reasons can put a range in that list. They come from different checks, but they ask exactly the same thing of you.

| Reason shown | What produced it | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| `couldn't transcribe cleanly` | The stronger signal. RoughCut watches for hallucination-style output — a phrase repeating over and over — and for words that sit almost entirely inside a detected silence. Either pattern marks the range as unreliable. | Listen to the range. Expect the text there to be repeated, invented, or absent. |
| `transcription may have degraded` | The weaker signal, raised by the transcriber's own health check when output quality appears to have dropped over a stretch. | Listen to the range. It is often fine; treat it as a prompt to check rather than a verdict. |

Both lines are printed with the range first and the reason after, in monospaced digits so the timecodes line up.

## A flag is not a verdict

Flagged sections are **not necessarily wrong**. The flags mark places where RoughCut's confidence in its own output dropped, which is a different claim from "this text is incorrect". Plenty of flagged ranges transcribe perfectly well; some unflagged ranges will still contain errors, because no transcriber knows everything it got wrong.

Treat the list as a triage queue in priority order, not as an error report. If you are producing captions or quoting the transcript, listen to every flagged range before publishing. See [Export SRT captions](/docs/srt-captions).

The same underlying flags appear in a rough cut too, where they are attached to the affected segments in the review list rather than listed as bare timecodes. See [Review cuts on the timeline](/docs/review-timeline).

## Reading and exporting the transcript

The transcript body is the recognised words joined into running text. It is **selectable**, so you can copy any part of it straight out of the window without exporting.

Its text direction follows the detected content, not the app's interface language: an Arabic transcript renders right to left even while RoughCut's interface is in English, and an English transcript renders left to right in the Arabic interface.

Two exports are offered:

- `Export SRT…` writes subtitle blocks with `HH:MM:SS,mmm` timecodes, saved as `<stem>.srt`.
- `Export Text…` writes the plain transcript, saved as `<stem>.txt`.

Both are described in [Supported inputs and generated files](/docs/file-formats).

## What is not here

RoughCut **does not provide a full transcript editor in the current version**. You cannot retype a word, merge a caption block, or fix a flagged range inside the app and re-export a corrected file. The workflow is: export, then correct in whatever editor you already use — a text editor for the TXT, or your captioning tool for the SRT.

There is also no speaker labelling, no per-word confidence display, and no translation. The transcript is in the language that was spoken.

## Common mistakes

- **Reading the flag count as an error count.** It is a count of ranges worth checking, not a count of mistakes.
- **Exporting captions without listening to the flagged ranges.** These are exactly the passages most likely to embarrass you on screen.
- **Assuming an empty flag block means a perfect transcript.** No flags means no check fired, not that every word is right.
- **Trying to fix the text in the app.** Export first, then edit.
- **Blaming detection for a wrong language.** Force `English` or `Arabic` on the job and run it again.

## Troubleshooting

| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| `Loading transcript…` never finishes | The job folder is being read | Wait; if it persists, reopen the job from the sidebar. |
| `Could not load the transcript: …` | The transcript file could not be read | The job folder may have been cleaned up. Finished jobs are removed after the retention window — see [Manage models, data, jobs, and storage](/docs/models-data-storage). |
| `SRT file is missing from the job folder.` | The SRT artifact is not present | Re-run the file. If the job folder was cleaned automatically, the artifacts are gone with it. |
| Most of the file is flagged | Very noisy or very quiet audio | Transcribe a separate microphone track if you have one, and check the `Recording environment` choice. See [Match the recording environment](/docs/recording-environments). |
| The transcript repeats one phrase for a long stretch | Hallucination loop in difficult audio | The range should be flagged as `couldn't transcribe cleanly`. Cut that passage from the exported text and listen to what was actually said. |
| The detected language is wrong | Auto-detection guessed badly, often on short or mixed-language clips | Re-run with `Language` set explicitly. |

Still stuck? See [Troubleshooting by symptom](/docs/troubleshooting).