Whisper
OpenAI's general-purpose speech recognition model.
Install
npx skills add Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs --skill whisper -g -a claude-code -y- Repository
- Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs14.2k
- Category
- Media
- Updated
- 25d ago
- License
- MIT
- Context cost
- Mediumabout 1,708 tokens
- Runs scripts
- No, instructions only
What it does
OpenAI's general-purpose speech recognition model. Supports 99 languages, transcription, translation to English, and language identification. Six model sizes from tiny (39M params) to large (1550M params). Use for speech-to-text, podcast transcription, or multilingual audio processing. Best for robust, multilingual ASR.
Whisper - Robust Speech Recognition
OpenAI's multilingual speech recognition model.
When to use Whisper
Use when:
- Speech-to-text transcription (99 languages)
- Podcast/video transcription
- Meeting notes automation
- Translation to English
- Noisy audio transcription
- Multilingual audio processing
Metrics:
- 72,900+ GitHub stars
- 99 languages supported
- Trained on 680,000 hours of audio
- MIT License
Use alternatives instead:
- AssemblyAI: Managed API, speaker diarization
- Deepgram: Real-time streaming ASR
- Google Speech-to-Text: Cloud-based
Quick start
Installation
# Requires Python 3.8-3.11
pip install -U openai-whisper
# Requires ffmpeg
# macOS: brew install ffmpeg
# Ubuntu: sudo apt install ffmpeg
# Windows: choco install ffmpeg
Basic transcription
import whisper
# Load model
model = whisper.load_model("base")
# Transcribe
result = model.transcribe("audio.mp3")
# Print text
print(result["text"])
# Access segments
for segment in result["segments"]:
print(f"[{segment['start']:.2f}s - {segment['end']:.2f}s] {segment['text']}")
Model sizes
# Available models
models = ["tiny", "base", "small", "medium", "large", "turbo"]
# Load specific model
model = whisper.load_model("turbo") # Fastest, good quality
| Model | Parameters | English-only | Multilingual | Speed | VRAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tiny | 39M | ✓ | ✓ | ~32x | ~1 GB |
| base | 74M | ✓ | ✓ | ~16x | ~1 GB |
| small | 244M | ✓ | ✓ | ~6x | ~2 GB |
| medium | 769M | ✓ | ✓ | ~2x | ~5 GB |
| large | 1550M | ✗ | ✓ | 1x | ~10 GB |
| turbo | 809M | ✗ | ✓ | ~8x | ~6 GB |
Recommendation: Use turbo for best speed/quality, base for prototyping
Transcription options
Language specification
# Auto-detect language
result = model.transcribe("audio.mp3")
# Specify language (faster)
result = model.transcribe("audio.mp3", language="en")
