When using the /transcribe API to submit files for transcription, single audio files and JSON transcripts can be submitted individually. Files submitted individually will not be associated with each other.

Multiple files can be submitted in a single POST request, but they must be encapsulated into a single zip file. These zip files can contain both audio data and metadata. Audio files and metadata files submitted as parts of a zip file will remain associated with each other as parts of a single submission.

The names of uploaded audio files and zip archives must adhere to the installation's filename requirements whether they are uploaded through the GUI or API. When uploading a zip file, only the name of the zip file is validated against this expression; files inside the zip are not checked. This feature was first implemented with version 4.0.1-3 to help protect against remote code executions. By default, these characters are not permitted in uploaded filenames: #*<>:?/\|{}$!'`"=^

To disable filename validation, set the filename_validation system configuration setting to off. To define custom filename character requirements, specify a regular expression for the filename_validation_pattern system configuration setting.

Files are not required to have unique names at a system level, but as of V‑Spark 4.2.0-1, individual folders may be configured to reject files with duplicate filenames. In either case, filenames should be unique as a best practice. Consider adding the file's timestamp, call ID, or a UUID to create a unique filename. Duplicate filenames make some processing take longer.

When a folder has the deduplication setting enabled, that folder will reject file uploads in the following scenarios:

Note that the entire zip is rejected when a duplicate file is detected, and duplicate file rejection for zip files nested inside other zip files is not supported. When folder-level deduplication causes a file to be rejected, V‑Spark generates a WARNING-level message in server.log and the Activity Log.

A request submitted to the /transcribe endpoint with an invalid filename parameter fails and returns HTTP error code 422.

All parameters that control transcription options are specified in the V‑Spark Folder definition. These include the language models used to decode each audio channel, number of speakers, number of audio channels (i.e. mono or stereo), etc. It is therefore unnecessary to provide these parameters when POSTing files to V‑Spark.

You can use either the root token for your V‑Spark installation or the token for the company that is associated with the organization and folder to which you are submitting your transcription request. See V‑Spark API Permission Requirements for information about locating these tokens and the rights that these tokens give you.

When using the /transcribe API to submit zip files for transcription of the audio files that they contain, the POST must be encoded as a multipart/form-data request, with the zip file name provided in a file field and a V‑Spark authorization token provided in the token field.

The following is an example of calling the /transcribe API method using the cURL command-line utility:

curl -F token=0123456789abcde0123456789abcde01 \
       -F "file=@/path/to/audio_and_meta.zip;type=application/zip" \
       -X POST https://hostname/transcribe/org_shortname/folder_name

The cURL utility is freely available for operating systems including Linux, Windows, and macOS.

In the example command, note that org_shortname refers to the Short Name assigned to the target Organization, which can be found on the V‑Spark Settings page in the Organization section of V‑Spark. The folder refers to the folder for the organization into which you want to upload the audio that is contained in the zip file that you are uploading.

Figure 1. Location of the V‑Spark Organization Short Name

The cURL command exits after transmission of the zip file to the V‑Spark instance has completed.

The POST returns a universally unique identifier (UUID) that identifies the transcription request. All transcripts produced as a result of the request will include a requestid field with its value set to this UUID. The requestid enables you to correlate individual transcripts with specific transcription requests.

Once the audio has been transcribed, the transcripts (along with optional metadata) are loaded into V‑Spark. Transcripts from any given request can be retrieved using the aforementioned UUID with the /request endpoint, or by using a callback server. Please refer to the V‑Spark Review and Analysis Guide for details regarding browsing, searching, and analyzing the calls and metadata within V‑Spark.