Provide a way to delete a transcription

[andrea_stewart]

When you copy a sequence and then delete clips in it, the old transcription stays with the timeline. Sometimes I copy a timeline because it has a layout and features that I am using consistently throughout a project but am building new edits within it. I realize that creating a template is probably the best way to go, but sometimes I just want to copy another timeline with edits already in it and work from that. I'd like to be able to just completely delete the transcript that comes over with it. 

Perhaps offer an option in the ... menu to CLEAR TRANSCRIPTION

I am on MacPro (M1) in PP 23.2 on Ventura

[JohnRael]

Solution (dumb workaround that I don't think anyone else has posted): Make sure the sequence has a 'blank' piece of audio and select the option to "re-transcribe" and (after way more time than it should rightfully take) it will tell you No Dialogue Found, but it leaves the transcript section for the sequence blank/un-enabled. 

[FormatioIN]

Hi!  

Premiere Pro 24.4 update added the feature you requested, check it out.

Text-Based Editing updates

BULK DELETE SPEAKERS FOR FASTER CLEANUP

You can now select all dialogue by a particular speaker in the transcript and choose to quickly bulk delete it from the video. It facilitates the removal of any irrelevant dialogue from your timeline, such as interviewers or other off-camera conversations in unscripted content.

see more. . .Premiere Pro feature summary (May 2024 release)

Thank you ! 

[Stan Jones]

I tested in 24.5.0 @Drew282889109oru's method of exporting/importing xml. It did remove the source media transcriptions - and caption tracks.

Stan

[JUDOBABY]

Need this.

It should be as simple as "delete transcript" and then select track to transcribe.

Not sure how it's 2024 and this isn't a thing yet.  

[Samuel Klein]

same here. i can't delete a transcript and create a new one or change the language? why??

[Samuel Klein]

That's not solving the problem at all. The request is to delete the entire transcript, not the audio track.If i got that right there is no way to do that except create a new project and import the files again, no?

[Stan Jones]

@Samuel Klein,

> i can't delete a transcript and create a new one or change the language? why??

See my earlier post regarding re-transcribing. You do not have to delete the transcript to re-transcribe.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-ideas/provide-a-way-to-delete-a-transcription/idc-p/1396...

> That's not solving the problem at all. The request is to delete the entire transcript, not the audio track.If i got that right there is no way to do that except create a new project and import the files again, no?

I think you're referring to the post about using Bulk Delete Speakers. I agree. Bulk Delete Speakers only works in the timeline (not the source media transcription), and removes the video/audio for what is deleted. The source media transcript remains, and will be added new to any sequence that adds the clip.

> there is no way to do that except create a new project and import the files again, no?'

I think that is mostly true. But what workflow would benefit from that if it really needs a Delete Transcript function.

Replace footage does not work. The transcript remains, and is associated with the new clip - even if the times do not match.

Delete the clip from the current project and reimport it. The transcript is gone.

Most of the comments in this feature request do not provide examples of workflows that need the option to delete the transcript. Most have other ways to accomplish the goal, such as re-transribing. Or the user does not understand the difference between the source media transcript (which is always the whole thing), the sequence transcript that is the parts of clips included in the sequence, and static/sequence transcripts that are created as the sequence exists at that moment and do not change as edits are made to the sequence.

Intuitively, it just seems like a good idea. Practically, I have to work through whether there isn't a way to accomplish each goal. The transcripts are coded into the project file. Oops; I turned on transcribe all files and now I want to get rid of the bloat: no way.

@TeresaDemel Is this ever likely to be included?

Stan

[JohnnyAir]

Incredibly frustrating when it must be so easy to do.  My file is audio only.  A workaround I  used just now was to export the sequence as an .mp4 and then import that as a clip and drag the clip into a new sequence.

[GREGORY218372648hng]

guess how I arrived at this post? I was looking for a simple button that would simply "Clear Transcription" as I have footage in greek transcribed as english and it's, of course, gibberish. Back to Whisper.AI then it seems...

[Beocht]

It's frustrating that an automated transcript is locked after creation. Please implement a "delete transcript" button.

Situation: The wrong clip was transcribed and thus a retranscript is needed. There's currently no way to remove this transcript as it is. 'Re-transcribe' is greyed out. Neither deleting the caption tracks, deleting individual subtitles nor switching timelines help.

Current workaround: Export the non-transcribed video as a video file. Make a new project and import the video into that and then retranscribe.

There's been a few posts requesting this the last few years, so found it fitting to raise it in 2025 as well.

Gotta love this automation revolution: lots of tech boasting, no help

[Stan Jones]

Upvoted.

> 'Re-transcribe' is greyed out.

Are you sure you are in the right "view" for the transcript you have? Sequence/static or source media? This should work.

The are other workflow issues that convinced me that even with re-transcribe working, we need a delete transcript option.

You should also link to the "old" feature request - total count is helpful.

Stan

[deuxmedia]

Choose 'duplicate sequence' and you see updated transcript in good language.

[mattchristensen]

Thanks everyone for you input on this issue. We didn't prioritize building in a "delete transcript" function originally because we believed that the ability to edit the transcript or re-transcribe would cover any common situation.

We hear you though that there are cases where it's just better to clear out the transcript completely. I don't have a date I can promise yet, but, the team is aware of this need.

[Max_Shuppert0084]

Dear Adobe:


Thank you for acknowledging our thread re: deletion of generated transcripts. Sooner = better and gaining that function will greatly assist those of us who make use of Premiere Pro transcriptions.

Yours,

Max


Max Shuppert/Broadcast Editor
NYC MEDIA
NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment
T: 212-602-7424 C: 917-544-0906
mshuppert@media.nyc.gov I www.nyc.gov/mome<>
[The NYC Media Logo, consisting of red, orange, and yellow letters.]

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[pirttre]

Based on my tests the transcriptions seem to increase the project file size, which is not surprising.

I'm working on a project where if have hunderds of hours of footage. If I auto transcribe all of the footage, it might increase the project file size up to 100 megabytes for a project that might otherwise be only 10mb large, making saving and loading the project slower. I have only transcribed maybe 5% of the footage of my project and I can already notice the saving times getting longer. 

I'd really like to auto transcribe all of the footage since it speeds up reviewing the footage, but I don't know if it's worth it, if the project file gets too slow. For this reason it would be nice to have the option to delete the transcriptions.

Thank you

[mattchristensen]

@pirttre Yes, the transcription text data does get saved into the project file. Therefore a project file with transcripts will be larger than the same project without transcripts.

However, text data is relatively tiny in terms of data storage and the Premiere Pro project format uses data compression when it is saved to disk. Text data like transcripts compress extremely well, and the compression ratio gets better the more text there is. There's no amount of transcribing you could realistically do to a 10 MB project file to make it 100 MB.

As I said before, we've heard that there's a utility to being able to delete a transcript, no debate there. I just want to make the point that the existence of transcript data in your project shouldn't be slowing it down, and definitely not because of file size.

[pirttre]

@mattchristensen thanks for the reply! Good to hear that this need is acknowledged!

...text data is relatively tiny in terms of data storage and the Premiere Pro project format uses data compression when it is saved to disk. Text data like transcripts compress extremely well, and the compression ratio gets better the more text there is. There's no amount of transcribing you could realistically do to a 10 MB project file to make it 100 MB.

I did some more testing with the file sizes:
A project with 18 hours of footage is 0.7 megabytes
A project with 18 hours of transcribed footage is 3.2 megabytes
- These projects have just the footage and no sequences
So the ratio between a transcribed project and untranscribed projects seems to go up to 5:1 and not 10:1 as I said before. This is is much more manageable. And in most cases the ratio is even smaller (this test doesn't include sequence sizes for example). 
I did my earlier file size estimations by exporting some transcripts and the project file indeed compresses them a lot better.  

[Leslie Kenehan]

I also could really use this option.  I transcribed footage on the camera audio by mistake when there was ISO audio.  Now in the group the transcipt is very sloppy, not able to identify who is talking.  Clearing the transcript from the camera audio would fix this.

[mattchristensen]

@Leslie Kenehan ah, I understand how that could confuse things. Until there is a proper Delete Transcript option, you can go inside the group and right click on the camera audio and choose "Ignore Transcript". This means that for that specific sequence, the transcript for that audio is not used in the sequence's transcript.

[Corniger]

All right, so I clicked on "Ignore transcript" and what now?

All I get in the transcript window is "No dialogue found".
I can't even undo that transcription. How do I get rid of this? I have to deliver this tomorrow and an automatic translation was generated. There's no "re-transcribe", before ignoring transcript this was present, but greyed out. Wouild be nice to be asked for transcript language before simply doing it and making it impossible to undo or delete!

Edit: yes, I also tried "re-transcribe" from the clip bin. Nothing happened. Then I went in and manually deleted the entire transcript text. "No dialogue found".
I will now render the video and try again in the rendered version. 

Edit 2: now I restarted Premiere, loaded the project and 80% of the clips are MISSING in the timeline! What the? Glad I could still pull a version from my cloud! 

Did anybody ever test this feature on usability? Sure doesn't seem like it.

[Stan Jones]

@Corniger,

The "ignore transcript" was recommended in the post above where there were multiple transcripts and one was creating problems. You appear to have only one, so when you ignore it, it finds no dialogue.

> an automatic translation was generated. Would be nice to be asked for transcript language before simply doing it and making it impossible to undo or delete!

I assume you want a transcription, but it was done in the wrong language. In the future, be aware that, when using the AUTOMATIC transcription, you must set a new default language in preferences BEFORE the event that triggers the transription. When you select a clip or clips in the Project Panel and right-click to transcribe, it allows you to change the language.

Go back to the sequence, and uncheck "ignore transcription."

In the project panel, right-click Re-transcribe. If that is not an option, post a screenshot. Set the correct language.

Does that work?

Stan

[Corniger]

@Stan Jones Thanks for the help!
Last time I used this, there was no translation feature yet, so I wasn't even aware. Also, I had to film people in 3 different languages, having a "default" language doesn't make much sense in that case.

The only thing that worked was:

1. restore the untranscribed version from cloud
2. change default language
3. restart
4. transcribe

Interestingly enough, even though I was prepared to manually transcribe, since re-transcribe from the clip bin never worked before, the engine automatically switched languages and did a pretty good job on horrifically pronounced English. Probably because I had it set to automatically switch languages. 

Re-transcribe never worked, in any scenario I described previously. In the transcript video, it was always greyed out, in the bin it never had any effect.

Still, no way to simply remove a transcript, and that's what this thread is about. And the truly shocking part was that my clips had disappeared from the timeline as I deleted the transcript manually - but only upon reloading the file! I could possibly have been editing happily only to find out much later the project was inadvertedly destroyed