Process your first episode

Processing an episode is the deep read: Podato goes through the whole transcript and pulls out the quotes, topics, people and ideas that everything else is written from. There are two ways in, depending on whether the episode is already in Podato.

Podato processes some episodes on its own (see How Podato works). These steps are for any other episode.

Each episode you process uses one from your plan's allowance, unless your feed already includes its transcript. See Plans and limits.

If the episode came in from your feed

1. Open Episodes

   Choose Episodes in the sidebar. The Not processed tab lists the episodes Podato hasn't processed yet.

2. Open the episode

   Choose an episode marked Not processed to open its page, then choose Process transcript.

3. Confirm where the transcript comes from

   What Podato asks depends on what your feed has:

   • If your feed links to a transcript, Podato asks Fetch this episode's transcript? Choose Fetch & process.
   • If there's only audio, Podato asks Transcribe and process this episode? Choose Transcribe audio, and Podato transcribes it first.
   • Either way, you can choose Upload transcript instead if you have a better one.

4. Let it run

   The episode shows Transcribing this episode or Processing this episode and how long it's been going. You can close the page; it carries on.

5. Write it up

   When it's done, the episode is marked Processed and its button changes to Create content. Choose it, then Generate write-up. See Your first write-up.

If you have a transcript file

1. Open the upload page

   On Episodes, choose New episode (just New on a phone), then Upload a transcript.

2. Add the transcript

   Drag the file in, or choose Browse Files. Podato takes .txt, .md, .srt or .vtt files. You can also paste the text on the Paste Transcript tab.

3. Choose Process transcript

   Add an episode title if you like, then choose Process transcript. Podato reads the episode and then writes it up. Each piece appears when it's ready, and you get an email when the write-up is done.

Processing lots of episodes

• Upload transcript files on the Episodes page takes many files at once, up to 2MB each. Podato matches each file to an episode by its name, and you confirm the matches before anything runs.
• Process from feed appears when your feed has episodes Podato can process straight away. It never uses your monthly allowance: it processes the episodes whose feed includes a transcript, which are free, and on the Grow plan, past episodes from the back-catalogue allowance.
• On a phone, both of these are in the New menu at the top of Episodes.
• To pick particular episodes, switch Episodes to Table, tick them, then choose Process.
• If you start one while another is running, it's Queued: next in line, and it starts on its own.