Is it true that AI companies are making bank by ingesting, remixing, and repackaging lectures?

At RiverScript, we do absolutely none of that. But we cannot speak for all transcription services, as we don’t know how they process, store, or secure lecture audio and generated transcripts. We always recommend that users thoroughly research a company before uploading their learning materials. RiverScript is strictly a tool designed to capture audio, convert it into text, and help students study. We do not train AI models on university lectures, nor do we sell or repackage data. Here is exactly how we protect your privacy: 1. We do not use your data or share it with anyone to train AI models. Your transcript data belongs solely to you, and only you control it. We comply with the GDPR and operate within the European Union, following EU privacy and data protection standards. All transcripts and account data are stored on our Hetzner servers in Helsinki, Finland, EU. Audio is stored for exactly seven days for your convenience, allowing you to return to it, listen while reading the synchronized transcript, and navigate the audio using timecodes. After seven days, the audio is permanently deleted. It is never shared with anyone after transcription. Audio recorded on your computer using RiverScript Desktop client is also stored on your computer and is not deleted automatically – it remains entirely under your control on your device. 2. We use trusted enterprise API partners under strict data protection agreements. Users’ audio streams are processed solely to generate transcripts and are not retained by these providers. All our subprocessors are transparently listed in our legal documents. 3. RiverScript does not use tracking or marketing cookies. You are completely anonymous to third-party advertisers, and we protect our users from them. 4. Users have complete ownership and control over their data. RiverScript is built strictly for personal education and intellectual growth. We trust our users to respect university intellectual property and use these tools solely to enhance their own learning experience. We also recommend that you carefully review the applicable laws and the lecture organizers’ rules before recording anything. These laws and rules may vary between countries and institutions, and we strongly recommend that you follow them. 5. In accordance with EU law, we allow users to delete any transcript data, permanently delete their account, and export all their transcripts as an archive. All these options are available in the settings.

How does your app recognize chemical formulas and specialized terminology? With other apps, I constantly had to replay lectures and correct nonsense and hallucinations.

We have two hybrid models: Standard Sync Model (OpenAI Whisper v3 + Deepgram Nova-2) and Premium Sync Model (ElevenLabs Scribe v2 + Deepgram Nova-3). Our engineers developed an AI architecture in which models from different providers complement and enhance one another. We also filter both the incoming audio and the text returned by the models in several stages. These solutions were developed entirely by RiverScript and significantly improve the quality of the final transcripts. Both our transcription models have performed exceptionally well when transcribing complex specialized terminology and formulas. However, we recommend Standard Sync Model (Free Start and Pro plans) for most standard needs – including studying. We recommend Premium Sync Model (Premium plan) for the most accurate enterprise-grade transcription when accuracy matters most.

Our professor always bans bots from live lectures in Zoom and Teams, so I can’t transcribe the audio into text for studying. This only makes it harder for many students to learn, especially if you have auditory processing disorder or are studying in a non-native language as an international student. Can the professor kick RiverScript out of the webinar?

No, you don’t need to worry about that. RiverScript Desktop client does not depend on other platforms – it runs independently on your device. It does not integrate itself into your online learning apps, so the professor cannot accidentally ban it. It simply runs on your computer, records the system audio, and then transcribes it. This allows you to study according to your personal learning needs – recording, listening to, and reading lecture transcripts at your own pace and whenever it is convenient for you.

Can RiverScript translate lectures and transcripts? Is it like Google Translate?

RiverScript translates lectures and other transcript text into 100 languages, the full list of which is available in the documentation. RiverScript translates transcripts with AI-level quality – it literally uses a model from OpenAI, so the quality is similar to translating with ChatGPT. But there is no chat length limit, so you can translate even an eight-hour lecture into another language or several languages at once, while maintaining AI-level translation quality. It is much better than Google Translate.

Transcribe online lectures you can’t download or live classes – even as an attendee

Q: If a professor has an accent, can RiverScript convert their speech into clear text?

Yes. Even RiverScript’s Standard Sync Model (OpenAI Whisper v3 + Deepgram Nova-2) is sufficient for this task. But if the lecturer’s accent is so strong that you can barely understand anything, try Premium Sync Model (ElevenLabs Scribe v2 + Deepgram Nova-3). It delivers exceptionally clean results using the latest technology on the transcription market and converts speech into text while completely eliminating false word matches.

RiverScript makes online learning materials accessible and saves time

Want to transcribe lectures? You’ve come to the right place – RiverScript has created a great solution for that. The RiverScript app is an AI transcription platform and system audio recorder for Mac and Windows, as well as a smart converter that turns speech into accurate, searchable text. It has several specially designed AI Sync Models for AI transcription of audio and video into text. Our app extracts the lecturer’s speech and converts it into text without false matches, as far as today’s AI technology allows – even when the speech contains specialized terminology. It also has an AI chat that searches for and extracts any information the lecturer mentioned during a lecture or webinar. You only need to ask the chat a question instead of searching through the text yourself. The software is available for both Mac and Windows on the download page.

Get notes, summaries, definitions of terms, quotes about group assignment deadlines, and condensed explanations of scientific theories. You can also translate online lectures from foreign languages into your native language and listen to specific topics by clicking the timestamps. We hope our AI workflow streamlines the university learning process and gives students more time for real life.

Our desktop client can also be useful for students who are hard of hearing, international students and language learners, as well as students who find it difficult to focus on a lecturer’s speech for long periods of time, such as students with ADHD. Our app makes the content of any lecture accessible to all students. In return, we hope that students will respect the university’s intellectual property and use our app only for their own learning in a way that works for them and follows the rules established by their educational institution.

If you cannot download online lectures to turn them into text for personal study, or if you are attending live classes, you can record lectures and capture lectures using RiverScript’s Live Recording Transcription feature.

Choose what you want to get from the lecture – either structured text with paragraphs or subtitles with timestamps. Start the lecture on Panopto, Blackboard, Kaltura, or Canvas, start the recorder, and have a coffee (unless there are interactive mini-quizzes you need to complete). RiverScript will then convert the lecture audio into accurate text, allowing you to study the content whenever and however it suits you – for example, by reading it or creating AI notes. Even if the professor tracks your every action and engagement with the content, and this affects your grade, they will see that you watched the lecture from beginning to end.

RiverScript gets terms right without false matches

Even Standard Sync Model (OpenAI Whisper v3 + Deepgram Nova-2) is usually enough for most complex tasks. This is because we have developed our own technology for processing incoming audio before sending it to the AI transcription model, as well as technology for filtering the transcript text returned by the model. Before you receive the final searchable text, the speech goes through a long chain of transformations. We tested the model on long medical university lectures, so if your lecture contains Latin, chemical formulas, or specialized slang, RiverScript will handle that well too. However, specifically for professional terminology and critical tasks where every word matters, we recommend using Premium Sync Model (ElevenLabs Scribe v2 + Deepgram Nova-3). The model is based on the best speech recognition technology available today and can even recognize complex abbreviations and professors with strong accents, completely without false matches.

If you first want to learn how to install the RiverScript app and record system audio for transcription, we recommend reading the separate guides for Windows and Mac.

How to turn online lectures into study guides with an AI workflow

Get a deep summary

To quickly find out whether this is the lecture you need and what it covers, read the automatically generated deep summary. Go to the AI (Summarize & Ask) tab in the upper-right corner of the editor. Select your language and click Generate. You can regenerate the summary in different languages as many times as needed and ask any questions about the lecture’s content in AI Chat. This is especially useful if the lecture contains a lot of filler – AI will give you only the facts.

Listen to the most interesting parts of the lecture

Click the automatically generated key moments to listen to individual parts of the lecture instead of sitting through the entire two-hour lesson. Each generated key moment is labeled with keywords to help you navigate the subtopics.

Search for quotes, formulas, and terms by keyword

Go to the Editor, click anywhere in the text, and press Ctrl+F on Windows or Command ⌘+F on Mac. Enter a word in the field to find what is actually important. This works in both the browser version of RiverScript and the desktop app.

Create your own "Eternal Lecture Archive"

To preserve knowledge that may be useful in the future – for example, when taking your final state exams – send your notes to your Notion archive, social media, or messaging apps using the Share button in the lower-right corner of the Editor. Alternatively, click Copy above the editor and paste the text into Obsidian, for example. You can also download the lecture transcript and its translations in PDF, DOCX, and TXT formats. If you selected webinar transcription with subtitles, you can also download them as SRT and VTT files. You can also share a link to the transcript with your classmates to discuss its ideas together. This is also done through Share: RiverScript creates a separate web page containing the transcript that can be accessed through the link.

Translate online classes from languages around the world

You can choose any of 100 languages into which you want to translate the transcript. RiverScript delivers high-quality, accurate AI translations of lectures containing a wide range of professional terminology, at the same level as ChatGPT, because it directly uses an AI model from OpenAI.

Unlike ChatGPT, however, RiverScript app does not get lazy halfway through a long translation: it translates the entire text, does not condense the content or cut it off in the middle, and preserves its structure even when you have recorded or uploaded a very large file up to 8 hours long. You can switch between different language versions of the same lecture with a single click using the language selector below the editor.

All of this makes RiverScript an excellent tool for streamlining your studies and freeing up more time for your personal life.

Convert online lectures you can’t download or live classes into text and AI study guides – even as an attendee