2026 Speech-to-Text Tool Comparison: MyEdit vs. Tinrec — Which Is Better for Chinese Meetings?

Before Choosing a Speech-to-Text Tool, Ask Yourself These Three Questions

Honestly, I get messages like this every day: "I need to turn a recording into a transcript — which tool should I use?"

The problem is, everyone needs something different. Some people just want to type up a 10-minute interview. Others need to record a full online meeting and automatically generate action items. And some work in a mix of Chinese, English, and Japanese.

So I won't just throw a tool at you. Ask yourself three things first.

First, where does your audio come from? Is it a phone recording of an in-person meeting, or an online meeting on Zoom or Google Meet? This determines how the tool needs to "capture" audio.

Second, what happens after transcription? If you just need a transcript for your records, your needs are simple. But if you want summaries, action items, and meeting data you can query, that's a completely different class of product.

Third, are you using it alone or with a whole team? Individuals care about how many minutes they can transcribe per month; teams need to look at members, seats, and data ownership.

Once you've thought through these three questions, the choice becomes much easier.

Before Buying a Speech-to-Text Tool, Understand These 4 Key Points

1. Language Recognition: It's Not Enough to Just "Support Chinese"

Many tools claim to support Chinese, but in practice they're mainly built for Mandarin and struggle with mixed Chinese-English speech. Meetings in Taiwan often include sentences like "let's align on the KPI for this campaign."

You need to test mixed language, not just pure Chinese or pure English. Tinrec puts Chinese-English mixing, multilingual meetings, and real-time translation into a single workflow, and teams can build custom hotwords to maintain internal terminology.

2. Does It Only Give You a Transcript, or Can You Keep Working?

A transcript is a starting point, not the end goal. What most people really need is to know "what was said in this meeting and who needs to do what."

When choosing a tool, check whether it offers summaries, chapters, action items, and query features. Tinrec builds these into a single workflow rather than scattering them across different pages.

3. How to Record Online Meetings: Bot or System Audio

Some tools rely on a meeting bot that joins as a participant. The problem is many companies block external accounts, so the bot can't get in.

Another approach is a desktop app that directly captures your computer's system audio. Tinrec's desktop version uses the latter — just press record yourself during the meeting.

4. How Free Tiers Are Calculated: Credits, Minutes, or File Count

MyEdit uses login credits, Otter.ai counts minutes, and TurboScribe counts files. Different methods make direct comparison difficult.

The most practical approach: take the type of recording you most commonly have and try each tool's free tier to see whose results you'd actually use as-is.

Tinrec — Our Top Pick After Testing

Tinrec is an AI meeting notes and collaboration tool for individuals and teams, available on web, desktop, and mobile. Its positioning isn't "audio-to-text" — it's about turning meetings into searchable, queryable, actionable data.

Record Directly During Meetings, No Bot Invites Needed

The desktop version captures computer system audio and works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex. This is especially useful for companies that block external accounts from joining meetings. Note that this doesn't mean it "automatically joins all meetings" — users still start recording themselves.

Recording Is Just the Beginning

After the meeting, transcripts, AI summaries, chapters, key points, and action items are generated together. Even better is AI Q&A — you can directly ask "who mentioned the budget in the last meeting?" and it responds based on meaning, not just a pile of keywords. Few tools in this price range currently offer this.

Multilingual and Real-Time Translation

During recording, you can switch between original text, translation, or bilingual view, so cross-language meetings don't require waiting until afterward to translate. Teams can also maintain hotwords to improve recognition of product names and proper nouns.

Output Paths That Work

Export to Notion, Google Docs, OneNote, Dropbox, and other tools for further processing, or use Agent post-processing to generate reports, tables, and documents.

Team Edition Keeps Data in Place

The team edition is a separate collaboration space, not multiple people sharing one account. Meeting data belongs to the team, and admins can manage roles, seats, usage analytics, and audit logs. Accidentally deleted audio goes to a 30-day recycle bin. When a member leaves or is removed, resources must be transferred to other active members — they don't disappear with the person.

Things to Note

The free version provides a basic quota to experience recording, importing, summaries, and transcription; heavy usage requires an upgrade. Individuals can choose a weekly pass, Pro monthly, or annual plan. Team pricing is USD 29.80 per paid seat per month, or USD 199 per paid seat per year (about USD 16.58/month), with each paid seat including 2,000 minutes of team-shared import quota per month.

Also, the team edition currently offers team-level sharing, not file-level permissions. Accuracy is also affected by recording quality, noise, accents, and multiple people talking over each other — for important content, we recommend cross-checking against the audio file.

Who It's For

If you frequently hold Chinese-English mixed meetings, don't want bots in your meeting room, and want to use AI to find key points right after the meeting — Tinrec is currently the closest match for these needs.

Besides Tinrec, What Other Options Are There?

MyEdit Speech-to-Text

A web-based tool — no software download or extension needed. Supports 9 languages: Traditional Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. Upload MP3, WAV, FLAC, or M4A. Log in daily to earn credits for free transcription; upgrade to Audio Pro for a fixed 360 credits per month. Three-step process: upload audio, select language and punctuation, preview and edit, then export — with optional timestamps. If you just occasionally need to turn existing recordings into text, MyEdit's web workflow is lightweight. However, it's essentially "file-to-text" — no desktop version for recording online meetings, and no meeting-focused AI Q&A or team space.

Otter.ai

A veteran choice for English meetings. Basic is free with 300 minutes per month; Pro annual billing works out to about USD 8.49 per user per month, including 1,200 minutes per month and 10 file imports. If 90% of your meetings are in English, its maturity is high. But for Chinese and Chinese-English mixed content, Tinrec is closer to what Taiwan teams need; post-meeting team data retention and Agent outputs are also areas where Tinrec is currently ahead.

Notta

Multi-platform transcription, file import, translation, and team plans are all available. Free tier: 120 minutes per month, 3 minutes per session; Pro annual is about USD 8.17 per month for 1,800 minutes; Business annual is about USD 16.67 per seat per month. Suitable for those mainly doing file transcription. However, it lacks Tinrec's desktop bot-free online meeting recording, as well as team hotwords and audio recycle bin.

Pitfall Guide: The 4 Most Common Mistakes When Choosing a Speech-to-Text Tool

Pitfall 1: Being Convinced by Numbers Like "Supports 9 Languages"

More languages doesn't mean it works well for your scenario. What most Taiwan teams really need is Chinese plus Chinese-English mixing — test these two first; other languages are a bonus.

Pitfall 2: Thinking a Transcript Is Enough

Using a tool only as "audio-to-text" means you're only using part of its capabilities. With Tinrec's AI Q&A, for example, you can ask for conclusions right after recording — far faster than manually scrolling through a 30-minute transcript.

Pitfall 3: Ignoring How Online Meetings Capture Audio

Buying a tool only to find the meeting bot can't join is very common. Test with your company's actual meeting room setup before deciding to pay.

Pitfall 4: Not Calculating Free Tiers Clearly

Credits, minutes, and file counts are three different methods. We suggest first estimating how many meetings you have per month and how long each lasts, then converting to the same unit for comparison.

Conclusion: Which One Should You Choose?

In one sentence: for Chinese meetings plus post-meeting organization, Tinrec is the top choice; if you just occasionally transcribe files, MyEdit is enough.

• Chinese-English mixed online meetings + post-meeting summaries and action items → Tinrec (desktop bot-free recording, summaries, chapters, and action items all in one)
• Want to ask questions directly about meeting content after recording → Tinrec (AI Q&A is a rare feature at this price point)
• Team needs to share meeting data and manage members and usage → Tinrec Team Edition (spaces, roles, seats, audit, recycle bin)
• Only have existing audio files, occasional transcriptions → MyEdit (web-based, free daily credits)
• Meetings are almost entirely in English, tight budget → Otter.ai (free 300 minutes/month, mature English experience)

My advice is to start with free versions. Tinrec's free tier provides a basic quota — enough for two or three meetings to feel out the actual experience. If it works for you, then consider upgrading; there's no need to pay upfront.

One final reminder: recording and transcription involve others' privacy. Follow local regulations and get consent where required.

References

• Online Speech-to-Text AI, Free MP3 or Recording to Transcript - MyEdit
• Online Text-to-Speech Tool, Free Fast AI Voice Generation
• AI Transcript Generator: Free Online Recording to Transcript - MyEdit
• MyEdit – Online AI Image, Video, and Audio Editing Tool
• AI Audio Editor - Free Online Audio Editing