Streamr - Plus exclusive Reviews

Like a lot of other reviewers have stated, there is a hidden cost of using the text-to-speech and a very very high cost if you want to do translation (US$45/hr).
I have rated it lower because the offer, in my opinion, is very misleading because it doesn't really give the full picture of what it will cost to utilize this software to its fullest.
I already have a Google Cloud account so the 'free $300 credit' was used up long ago and again it is misleading to use this $300 credit as a way to say that there's very little cost for using the product.

IT'S AN ADD-ON TO THE VIDTOONES FAMILY: When you redeem your purchase you'll end up logged into the VidToons website, which is where your account for the VidToons family of products is managed. The Streamr "homepage" is https://vidtoon.com/streamr/

THERE ARE FOUR LOGINS: To manage your account you have to log into the VidToons website. From their you download the Streamr desktop app. Then you have to log into the desktop app. All the translation, speech-to-text and text-to-speech is performed by Google Cloud services, so you also need a Google user account AND a Google Cloud account. There's a very helpful video walking you through the process of signing up for and configuring a Google Cloud account, that's mostly trouble-free.

ONGOING COSTS: The Streamr desktop app is essentially a reasonably nice front end UI for some industrial grade cloud services provided by Google Cloud. When you first sign up for Google Cloud Google gives you a $300 credit to use during your first 90 days. After that you have to pay for translation, text-to-speech and speech-to-text services, but their rates are really cheap. So if you use the product long term, recognize that there will be ongoing costs, but they will be very low.

DESKTOP APP USABILITY: The app is a fairly OK first cut, but it's rough around the edges. For example, when you close a project, where do you go to find your list of other projects? How do you start a new project? There is a way, but its far from obvious.

BUG-FREE-NESS: I was able to load some short videos, get subtitles generated, translate the subtitles into other languauges, and export the videos with the embedded subtitles. But I have not yet been able to get the videos to display (I get a blank "screen") in the app, and trying to control the playing of various parts has been hit and miss. (I'll contact Support about this once I get Google Cloud re-enabled).

GOOGLE CLOUD ACCOUNT SUSPENDED: I left myself logged into both the Streamr app and Google Cloud overnight. The next day Google Cloud said my account had been suspended! What?! Why?! I can't imagnine what might be the issue, but I've applied for reconsideration. We'll see if they'll re-enable my account. Until then, I can't try out Streamr any more.

WISHLIST: It appears that Streamr will only create subtitles: little chunks of text to be displayed below a video. I wish it would also support creation of a bulk transcription, preferably with different speakers identified, that could be exported as, for example, a Word file. I also didn't find a place I could enter specialized vocabulary that are used in my meetings and videos. This could help the speech-to-text engine do a more accurate job of creating transcriptions.

All for now...

This should been mentioned in the description - when you upload a video you'll get an error that tells you to add a Google Cloud Api Key and Google Cloud Storage Bucket.
While it may be initially free to signup for such a service it is a requirement that needs to be expressed before purchase.
Very frustrating, will refund this item.

I'm still futzing around with the program right now, so I don't have a lot to say about nuances.

I am familiar with Google's speech to text capabilities from both using it for dictation and for grabbing the transcriptions on YouTube and fixing them up, so I am sure of the high quality of transcription Streamr provides. The good part for me transcription-wise is that I can transcribe videos from anywhere, not just YouTube. From what I have experimented with so far, Streamr is pretty fast.

I did not even buy Streamr for subtitles or streaming. I bought it or transcribing videos. But now that I have it, I know I'm going to use it. After a while, I might come back and give some more input.

I want to mention the customer service. It blew me away. When I redeemed my purchase, I made a stupid mistake. (Add a little more stupid on top of that and season it with stupid.) I supplied my email with ",com" instead of ".com" at the end.

This threw the whole process off but still got me inside the VidToon site (Streamr section) where I managed to download the program. But I could not make it work since it would not recognize my real email as authorized, and it did not consider an email with ",com" as a valid email. And I could not fix things from inside the site.

So I wrote an email to support at about 2:00 AM, totally frustrated. I mean, this took a few hours trying to get things to work. Granted, my email was detailed and not just a complaint, but what else was I doing at that time of the morning?

Lo and behold, about an hour later, I got an email back (from Fatima) not only fixing the problem, but also giving me other details. I even asked some more questions--by email--and she answered them immediately.

This has never happened to me before for anything. Ever. Wow...

The program is a great one so far and deserves five tacos, but it deserves another five tacos for the customer service alone. Highly recommended.

Streamr accomplishes its purpose. But the set up isn't easy as they claim it to be on their website. I was finding myself looking at their help center page multiple times to solve the errors I was getting when trying to transcribe a video. Luckily, they had a help center and actual steps on how to solve these errors, but it wasn't as simple as clicking next.
It isn't explicitly mentioned that you are required to create a Google Cloud account for the Streamr to work at all. If you don't thoroughly read the comments on here or their website, you won't be aware of this. Although you need a Google Cloud account for this software to work, I did find it was affordable compared to competitors if you don't plan to use it at a large scale. But isn't clear how much it will cost to use Google Cloud after their 90-day trial/$300 credit. Another thing to note is that the software writes and stores all the transcription data in a bucket (Google Cloud storage) which I don't even know how much will cost me to have.
The interface of the software is easy to use and get a hang of. The subtitle customization is limited, but enough to get the job done. An inconvenience I noticed is that the Streamr doesn't have an option to remember your email or password when starting up the program after a boot, so you need to retype your email and password every time you boot up your computer and want to use Streamr. I also think it would be nice to have an option to customize the number of lines and characters you would like per caption.
Overall Streamr is a helpful tool with about 89% accuracy in the transcription. It significantly reduces the time needed to be spent transcribing a video manually. Transcription results though, isn't provided through Streamr as it is coming from Google's own speech-to-text AI which is also found on YouTube auto captions. For the price that it is being offered Streamr is ok.

Pros:
-Easy to use
- Improves transcription and subtitling speed using Google AI
-Affordable, but not sure of the Google Cloud storage costs in the long term

Cons:
- Limited subtitle customization
-No options to customize the number of characters and lines per caption
-Set up isn't plug and play
-Requires Google Cloud account
-No remember email/password, session expires and requires that you login after each boot
-No project management, there's no bulk delete or the ability to rename a project unless you open it