Alternative, less restrictive, but slower backend is [whisper-timestamped](https://github.com/linto-ai/whisper-timestamped): `pip install git+https://github.com/linto-ai/whisper-timestamped`

 Thirdly, it's also possible to run this software from the [OpenAI Whisper API](https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference/audio/createTranscription). This solution is fast and requires no GPU, just a small VM will suffice, but you will need to pay OpenAI for api access. Also note that, since each audio fragment is processed multiple times, the [price](https://openai.com/pricing) will be higher than obvious from the pricing page, so keep an eye on costs while using. Setting a higher chunk-size will reduce costs significantly. 

 For running with the openai-api backend, make sure that your [OpenAI api key](https://platform.openai.com/api-keys) is set in the `OPENAI_API_KEY` environment variable. For example, before running, do: `export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-xxx` with *sk-xxx* replaced with your api key. 

 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

 def load_audio(fname):

     a, _ = librosa.load(fname, sr=16000, dtype=np.float32)

     return a