Transcript Visibility

Transcript visibility decides who is given a show’s transcripts: in their podcast feed, on the episode page, through the [benecaster_transcript] shortcode and in your site’s search. Each show has a default, and any episode can choose differently.

It is decided apart from who can play the episode. You can make transcripts public while the audio stays for subscribers, or sell transcripts on their own as a buy-up.

The Show’s Setting

Go to Benecaster → Shows → open the show → Settings → Transcription. The tab appears only on shows Transcription is switched on for. Under Transcript visibility, choose one:

Click Save visibility. Selected tiers with no tier ticked, or Buy-up holders with no buy-up ticked, cannot be saved (Tick at least one tier. / Tick at least one buy-up.).

A show starts on All visitors, until you choose otherwise.

Who Counts

A member’s tiers are the ones they hold right now, read the same way for their feed and for your site, so a member on two tiers, or one moved under Tier Mapping, gets the same transcripts in their podcast app as on the episode page.

• All subscribers means a tier of the show other than the public one. A follower, someone on the public feed, and someone holding only a buy-up do not count. On your site it also needs an active private feed.
• Buy-up holders counts the buy-ups a listener holds, never a tier.

An Episode’s Own Setting

Open the episode in Benecaster → Episodes and go to its Transcript tab. Use show default is ticked, with Show default: {setting} under it. Untick it to choose one of the same five settings for this episode, then click Save visibility.

An episode with its own setting keeps it when you change the show’s default. A new episode shows Save the episode first, then choose who can see its transcript. until it has been saved once.

A Tier’s Own Transcript

On an episode with files under Tier Audio Variants, each {Tier} variant section on the Transcript tab has its own Who can have this transcript, starting on Use the default for this audio. The bottom panel is then headed Base audio transcript visibility.

The default is Selected tiers: that tier, and any above it with no file of its own. It’s worked out again when a tier gains a file. Hidden or Buy-up holders on the base audio’s transcript carries over to the default, so hiding the base hides them all, and a transcript you sell doesn’t go free. Only a setting you choose for the tier’s transcript goes past that, and it stays put through later changes to the episode and show.

A listener who can’t have a tier’s transcript falls back to the base audio’s, under the base audio’s setting, or gets nothing if that excludes them too. That applies to a transcript that is Hidden, and to one whose setting leaves them out.

A tier’s transcript reaches listeners through their podcast feed only. The section says This transcript reaches listeners through their podcast feed only. The episode page plays the base audio, so it always shows the base audio’s transcript. Its setting can neither open the page (All visitors on a tier’s transcript over a Hidden base shows nothing there) nor close it (a Hidden tier’s transcript leaves the base transcript showing). The same goes for [benecaster_transcript], the notice and site search.

What the Setting Governs

• Podcast feeds. The <podcast:transcript> tag is in a listener’s feed only when the setting lets them have it, and left out of that feed entirely otherwise. Only All visitors puts it in the public feed. See Podcasting 2.0 Support.
• The episode page. The page’s Transcript section shows only to visitors the setting lets read it, with its Download the transcript: links. Anyone else sees no section by default, or a notice if you turn one on.
• The [benecaster_transcript] shortcode. The same: a visitor it excludes sees nothing by default.
• The formatted version. Once a transcript is formatted, the page’s paragraphs and the feed’s text/html tag reach only the visitors and listeners the setting allows.
• Site search. A transcript is searched only for people the setting lets read it, and a Hidden one never.
• Other apps reading your site. The transcript address in Benecaster’s REST API for episodes is given only to people the setting lets read it.

A transcript link you entered yourself in the episode editor is not governed by this setting. It follows Benecaster’s own rules for the Read the transcript link.

You Always See Your Own Transcripts

Anyone who can edit an episode sees its transcript under every setting, Hidden included. A note above the transcript, shown only to them, says who else can read it and whether the episode follows the show’s setting, with a Change link to the episode’s Transcript tab. Benecaster’s Preview as Tier does not change what an editor sees of a transcript. To check what a listener gets, sign in as one, or open the page in a private window to see what a signed-out visitor gets.

Transcript Files Are Public

Each finished transcript is a file, in WebVTT, SRT, plain text and PDF (and HTML once formatted), at an address made of 32 random characters, so one address cannot be worked out from another. Anyone who has the address can open the file, without signing in, because podcast apps must be able to fetch it. What keeps a restricted transcript from a listener is that Benecaster never gives them the address. The download links under the transcript are these same addresses, which is what an eligible listener’s feed already carries. Search engines are asked not to index the files themselves.

So a listener who was given the address, and passed it on, has passed on the transcript. Changing the setting stops Benecaster giving the address out from then on, but an address already handed out keeps working. A developer can swap in signed, expiring addresses; the transcription-signed-url recipe shows how, and what it can’t cover.

When Transcription Is Switched Off or Your License Lapses

The rules keep applying. If Transcription is switched off for a show, or your license lapses, its transcripts keep being served under the visibility already set, and the transcript files keep answering. The two Transcription and Transcript tabs disappear until you switch it back on or renew, so the setting cannot be changed in the meantime.

If the add-on is deactivated or deleted, the transcript links it wrote are left out everywhere, and the files stop answering.

People Who Can’t Read a Transcript

By default, a visitor the setting excludes sees nothing. You can choose otherwise, per show: Benecaster → Shows → open the show → Settings → Transcription, below Transcript visibility, in People who can’t read a transcript. It has its own Save.

The first lines are in the page for anyone, search engines included. Choose that option only if you’re happy for them to be public.

The notice shows on the episode page, under the Transcript heading, and in [benecaster_transcript]. It never appears under Hidden or All visitors, never in a feed (the tag stays withheld), and never gives the transcript file’s address or a download link. It is per show, with no per-episode setting; an episode’s own visibility decides the wording. It stays when your license lapses or Transcription is switched off for the show.

The note above a transcript, shown only to editors, says so too: Everyone else sees a notice… or …its first 3 lines and a notice….

A developer can change or replace what they see with the benecaster_transcript_locked_html filter.

For Developers

• benecaster_user_can_see_transcript() — the same decision, for your own code
• benecaster_transcript_locked_html — what an excluded visitor sees
• transcription-visibility-check and transcription-signed-url — recipes