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Using GStreamer with Transcribe!

GStreamer is an open source media handling library. On Transcribe! for Windows version 8.6 - 9.1 & Mac version 8.6 - 9.0, you can optionally install GStreamer which will allow Transcribe! to:

Note 1: The current version Transcribe! 9.20 or later has GStreamer built-in so if you can run this version then download it and use it (free to existing users). For this you will need 64-bit Windows 10 or later or macOS 11 or later.

Note 2: On Linux you need to have GStreamer already installed or you can't run Transcribe! at all, and this has been the case since version 8.2 in 2011. This page is about Windows and Mac.

Note 3: Many people will not need to install GStreamer. If you're not bothered about video, and happy with the very wide range of audio file formats which Transcribe! can already read, and are happy to export audio in wav or aiff format should you need to, then you don't need GStreamer.

Note 4: GStreamer is "free" sofware, both in the sense that you can download the source code if you want to, and in the sense that it doesn't cost any money.

Note 5: Transcribe! used to use QuickTime for displaying video. QuickTime is now obsolete and Transcribe! 8.6 or later does not use it at all. This does not mean that there is any problem playing QuickTime files (mov files) in this version of Transcribe!. Obviously I cannot promise that any particular audio or video file will play ok, but GStreamer does play QuickTime files and in fact this version of Transcribe! can usually play the audio from such files without even needing to install GStreamer at all.

Installing GStreamer

For your comfort and convenience, we (Seventh String) have prepared suitable GStreamer installer downloads for you. These are in fact cut-down versions of the standard GStreamer distributions - we have removed plugins which Transcribe! would not have any use for, in order to save space and download time.

Click here for our GStreamer installer for Windows

Click here for our GStreamer installer for Mac (note that we do not advise using the "homebrew" installer)

You can install the official GStreamer instead if you want to, though this can be risky as the GStreamer people change things from time to time, sometimes in incompatible ways. So we recommend that with Transcribe! you use the version we provide.

If you have installed one version of GStreamer and then want to install another, then it is essential to delete the previous installation first. That means you should delete:
Windows: C:\gstreamer (or other location depending on where you chose to install it).
Mac: /Library/Frameworks/GStreamer.framework (on your System Disk - note this is not the same as the Library subfolder you will find in your Home folder - you won't find GStreamer there. To find the Library folder on your system disk: select "Go to folder..." on Finder's "Go" menu, and type "/Library".)

Note 1: If you have already installed GStreamer then you don't need to install it again when you update Transcribe!

Note 2: After installing GStreamer you will need to restart Transcribe! in order for Transcribe! to find it.

Note 3: You can always check whether GStreamer is installed correctly by looking at Transcribe!'s "System Info" command (on the Application menu or the Help menu) where you will find a message about GStreamer.

If you want to know more about GStreamer, you can find their home page here.