Output formats¶
--format picks how the transcript is written, and applies to stdout and the output file alike.
| Format | Extension | What it is |
|---|---|---|
txt |
.txt |
Plain text, the default. One line per segment in live mode |
srt |
.srt |
SubRip subtitles, understood by essentially every video player |
vtt |
.vtt |
WebVTT, the W3C standard, loadable by a browser <track> element |
json |
.json |
openai-whisper's JSON schema (text, segments, language), for programmatic use |
tsv |
.tsv |
Tab-separated start/end milliseconds and text |
The timed formats carry the engine's own per-utterance timings. In live mode those are rebased onto the timeline of the whole recording, so cue times keep increasing across segments.