Descript Reviews

I used the free version to transcribe a few videos and I think it would be nice to leave at least a positive comment. Descript did what it had to, it lets you neatly organize stuff, has tons of features and pretty nice UI.

At the time of writing this, this is quite a new service with tonnes more on the way. Currently, I'm using Descript to find a short compelling narrative 3 to 5 minutes in length from over 2 hours of interview footage. The process of selecting story is amazing in that regard, being able to rearrange everything in a new composition and export the XML to Premiere and have a perfectly cut story. Although the act of getting to that stage is quite tricky when you only upload the audio from the interview and not the 2hours of 4k footage. - but possible. The features that I've used in my experience are game changing, and whether your using this for video editing with stories like I am, or for Podcasts; its really second to none. You can very easily navigate, copy, highlight, collaborate, leave notes, remove words like " um / uh " from the entire piece, remove dead space. If your thinking about using it, I highly recommend trying for your next project and seeing if it fits into your workflow, or grows to enhance it.

I like descript. There are many terrific things about it. BUT! And, this is a big BUT!! Please stop changing everything all the time. We get used to a way of working and then you update things you do not need to update or wait till you have a lot of changes and give it to us all at once. The constant changes throw my project work into a tailspin because I have to stop to figure out what is not working the way it was just the day before or what to do differently. VERY FRUSTRATING! Because this is a good app, but the constant "updates" are frustrating!

Use this for transcribing podcasts and it is very user friendly. Can detect and label speakers easily. Minor errors in grammar and spelling.

I’ve been using Descript to edit my podcast since May 2020, and I’ve given a rating for various aspects of the software so that you can judge for yourself whether you want to pay for it.

TIME & COST SAVING – 5 Stars
Descript saves MASSIVE amounts of time in editing compared to what I used in the past which was Adobe Audition. Being able to edit and highlight parts of each episode like a Word Document decreases episode production time by orders of magnitude. Descript also saves me from having to pay for the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription fee. I can do basic audio clean up in Audacity instead of Adobe Audition.

RELIABILITY – 2 Stars
Since signing up 4 years ago, the desktop app has just got worse and worse. It crashes all the time, it’s clunky and finicky. I don’t understand why because the app always installs new updates regularly.

MACHINE LEARNING – 1 Star
The transcription is not very accurate (in my estimation it’s about 85% accurate). It was so time-consuming to correct the transcripts that I gave up after a year. I thought by carefully correcting the transcripts, I would be helping the machine learning get better and better over time. But it doesn’t make any difference at all. So, then I switched to producing a raw transcript in PDF format for my listeners, but putting a warning page saying that it contains lots of errors or omissions.

INNOVATION – 4 Stars
Descript has developed some great features over the years such as Overdub and Video Editing. However, even these have their challenges. Overdub doesn’t work properly if you are editing the video version of your podcast. That’s because it replaces the video with a black screen for that particular moment that overdub is used. The video editing also causes the app to keep crashing too often.

SUMMARY
If I were starting a podcast today, I would try other solutions first. The Descript app is too buggy and unreliable. In one way Descript is still a massive time-saver vs editing in Adobe, but recently (in 2024), I find that more frequent crashes are wasting far too much of my time and causing me to lose my flow when doing the deep work required in editing.

The idea is great and when it works, it's great. When it doesn't work (which is often over the several years that I've used it), customer service is sparse and takes a long time to resolve the issue. Don't depend on Descript for consistent app function, delivery or for reliable, helpful, or timely customer service.

watermark is a problem

Seems like a scam. Software doesn't work (many recording aftifacts in all of our separate tracks). Don't expect any support at all...

This was a massive letdown. The demo videos on the website are so compelling that I signed up immediately. The gap between the demo and the reality couldn't be bigger. Many of the advanced functions are half-baked and don't function properly, the interface freezes often, and the user experience is clunky. Cancelled my membership and won't be returning.

Social media platforms like facebook and others are blocking my videos containing Descript video and audio stock oe sharing my Ad royalties with the creators of these stock. I've only released a few videos so far and this immediate blocking and sharing indicates the high probability of Descript videos and audios raising red flags on social media. I can't deal with disputing the copyright claims every time I launch a video. It's exhausting and distracting. I don't think Descript is serious with vetting its stock videos and audios as truly royalty free. They aren't. I will shift to Adobe as soon as their AI version come out before the end of 2024. I paid for a annual subscription really liking Descript and now I realize its not a good company.