Whisper Transcription Server#

This is a FastAPI server that provides real-time audio transcription using the faster-whisper library.

Features#

Real-time transcription with streaming progress updates
Supports multiple audio formats (MP3, WAV, M4A, etc.)
Language detection
Segment-based transcription with timestamps
RESTful API endpoint

Setup#

1. Install Dependencies#

pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Run the Server#

Option 1: Manual setup

pip install -r requirements.txt
python main.py

Option 2: Quick start script

./run.sh

The server will start on http://localhost:8000 and load the Whisper model (this may take a few minutes on first run).

API Usage#

POST `/transcribe-with-progress`#

Upload an audio file to get real-time transcription progress.

Example with curl:

curl -X POST "http://localhost:8000/transcribe-with-progress" \
     -F "file=@/path/to/your/audio.mp3"

Streaming Response: The endpoint returns a stream of JSON objects:

{"status": "starting", "total_duration": 15.36, "language": "en", "language_probability": 0.99}
{"status": "progress", "percentage": 25.59, "start": 0.0, "end": 3.93, "text": "This is a test of the transcription server."}
{"status": "progress", "percentage": 57.68, "start": 3.93, "end": 8.86, "text": "It should be streaming the results back in real time."}
{"status": "complete"}

Response Format#

starting: Initial metadata about the audio file
progress: Transcription segments with progress percentage
complete: Transcription finished successfully
error: An error occurred during transcription

Configuration#

You can modify the model settings in main.py:

model_size = "base"  # Options: tiny, base, small, medium, large-v1, large-v2, large-v3
model = WhisperModel(model_size, device="cpu", compute_type="int8")

For GPU acceleration, change to:

model = WhisperModel(model_size, device="cuda", compute_type="float16")

Integration with Thistle#

This server is designed to work with the Thistle web application. Set the WHISPER_SERVICE_URL environment variable in Thistle to point to this server.

# In Thistle's .env file
WHISPER_SERVICE_URL=http://localhost:8000