Which Transcript Format? TXT vs SRT vs VTT vs JSON

Four transcript formats, four different jobs. The short answer: reading it → TXT; video subtitles → SRT; styled web captions → VTT; building something → JSON. The rest of this guide is the detail behind that sentence.

The decision tree

What are you doing with this transcript?
│
├─▶ Reading / editing / sharing as a document
│     └─▶ TXT
│
├─▶ Adding subtitles to video
│     ├─▶ YouTube, Premiere, Final Cut, standard players → SRT
│     └─▶ Custom web player, styled/positioned captions → VTT
│
├─▶ Building an app or automated analysis
│     └─▶ JSON
│
└─▶ Not sure → download more than one and keep options open

TXT: plain text

Speaker-labeled paragraphs, no timing syntax. The format for human consumption — reading, editing, pasting into documents, and feeding LLM prompts: content-creation prompts work noticeably better on TXT because timestamp clutter wastes the model's attention. If you only ever use one format, it is this one.

SRT: SubRip subtitles

Numbered blocks of timecode + text. The universal subtitle currency: YouTube, Premiere, Final Cut, DaVinci, VLC, and effectively every player accept it. Also the right format whenever you need when something was said — clip cutting, quote verification, episode chapters — even if no subtitle ever ships.

VTT: WebVTT captions

SRT's web-native sibling, used by HTML5 <track> elements and web players. Adds styling, positioning, and metadata that SRT lacks. Choose it when captions render in a browser you control; choose SRT everywhere else — and convert between the two trivially when needed (the header and timestamp punctuation differ; the content is the same).

JSON: structured data

Word-level timing, speaker attribution per segment, confidence scores — the machine-readable everything-format. For developers piping transcripts into search indexes, analytics, or apps, and for advanced LLM workflows where per-speaker analysis matters. Nobody reads JSON; everything good is built from it.

Selection by use case

AI Prompt: Format Converter

Already have a transcript in the wrong format? The Transcript Format Converter prompt in our free AI prompts library converts between TXT, SRT, and VTT — stripping timestamps for a reading copy, or rebuilding subtitle blocks with proper line-length limits from a timestamped source. For formats with timing the source lacks (TXT → SRT), it flags that timing must come from re-transcription rather than inventing it.

The simpler path: get the formats right at the source. TranscribeBee exports TXT, SRT, DOC, and PDF from every transcription — download what today's job needs and keep the rest.