Transcript Playback

Podchaser makes it easy to explore podcast content by offering transcripts for thousands of episodes. Whether Podchaser has transcribed an episode directly or pulled in an existing transcript from the podcast’s RSS feed, you can read and interact with these transcripts on episode pages. One of the most useful features is timestamped playback, which lets you click directly on a section of text to instantly play the audio from that point in the episode.

This article explains how transcript playback works, including key differences between cached audio for Podchaser Pro users and live audio for all other users.

Note: Cached audio is provided for informational purposes only and is not a replacement for the official episode audio provided in the podcast’s RSS feed.

Podchaser Pro users get access to cached audio playback for episodes transcribed by Podchaser. Cached audio means you’re listening to the exact audio file that was used to generate the transcript.

For cached audio playback: Playback happens inside the transcript UI, directly within the snippet chunk you clicked on.

Cached audio playback is only available for podcasts transcribed directly by Podchaser. For podcasts where Podchaser imports transcripts from RSS feeds, only live audio is available (more on that below).

This ensures that the transcript and the audio match up perfectly. If you played the live audio from the podcast’s RSS feed, there’s a chance the transcript would no longer match due to:

With cached audio, what you hear is exactly what Podchaser used to create the transcript.

All users—whether Pro or not—can click on transcript snippets to play the corresponding audio. However, for non-Pro users and for podcasts not transcribed by Podchaser, playback will occur through the native player using the podcast’s live audio from the RSS feed.

This comes with the same accuracy disclaimer: if the podcast has been updated (e.g., ads inserted, content changed), the transcript may no longer match the live audio.

For live audio playback: Playback happens in the native player at the bottom of the episode page.

For transcripts uploaded to Podchaser that do not include timestamps, timestamped playback is not available. You can still read the transcript, but you won’t be able to click a snippet to jump to that part of the audio.