Omphalis opens one source as a reading page: a podcast episode, a PDF, or an article. A highlight stays on the passage, with your note beside it. An answer cites the passages it used. On a podcast, that passage keeps its timestamp when the transcript has one.
What is the short answer?
If you want to stay inside one episode, PDF, or article, try Omphalis with that source.
A highlight reopens the passage, with the text around it still in view.
On a podcast, Ask shows numbered sources you can open in the transcript. On a PDF or an article, the citation is the passage, not a clock time.
There's a free plan. 30-day trial, no card required. Includes 200 voice minutes, 200 PDF pages and 15 assistant answers a day. After that, Free stays free.
Stay with NotebookLM if you want Audio Overviews, study guides, quizzes, or a conversation across a set of sources.
There's a free plan. 30-day trial, no card required. Includes 200 voice minutes, 200 PDF pages and 15 assistant answers a day. After that, Free stays free. See plan allowances.
You can also try a quote without an account. The quote finder takes a transcript or a public article URL, and a podcast episode or PDF URL when the app connection is set up. It returns that text and a few quotes copied from it, with timestamps when the source has them. Three runs an hour and ten a day from one connection. Episodes longer than 90 minutes are not transcribed there.
Disclosure: this comparison is written by Omphalis about its own product, so it is not a neutral review. We are not paid by NotebookLM or by anyone else to be compared favourably, this page carries no affiliate links, and every claim about NotebookLM is checked against their own public documentation. Read the full disclosures, and tell us if something here has gone out of date.
Google's September 15, 2026 post describes a new look for Gemini Notebook and more ways to study a notebook. You would soon be able to talk with a notebook in the Android and iOS apps, in nearly 100 languages, and interrupt by speaking. The post says those responses are grounded in your sources. Starting the following week, the mobile app would add an audio recorder for lectures and for thoughts recorded on the go. Notes would sit alongside the sources.
The same post says interactive learning overviews, under Reports, would weave together summaries and studio outputs such as infographics, quizzes, and flashcards, rolling out over the following weeks. More quiz formats were coming: short answer, multiple select, and fill in the blank. Short video overviews, about 60 seconds, were described as available in more than 80 languages. This is a study workflow. It is a fair reason to stay if that is the work you wanted to do.
The post does not say that citations, PDFs, or audio sources were taken away. If your problem is that a quote or an answer has drifted off the sentence it came from, that is a different job from a study overview. The rest of this page is about that job.
Where does a quote land?
What happens with a podcast episode?
Paste a supported episode link into the Library. Not every link resolves. Once the transcript is ready, timestamps, speaker labels, and a section map help you find a part. Highlight the passage and add why it mattered. Opening the mark later returns you to that passage. Ask about this episode, with Current item selected, shows numbered sources you can open in the transcript. Voice Ask works in English in the browser web app, in sessions up to 20 minutes, on Pro, Premium, Scholar, and the 30-day trial. Free includes limited typed Ask and no voice minutes. Listen reads the transcript aloud. It is not the original hosts' recording. How podcasts work in Omphalis.
What happens with a PDF or an article?
A PDF opens as a cleaned reading page with a section map. You highlight a passage and the note stays beside it. Opening the mark returns you to that passage with the surrounding text. Ask cites the passages it used. The reading view is extracted text, so keep the original file for figures, tables, equations, and any layout that carries meaning. PDFs are read on paid plans and during the 30-day trial, within the trial's 200 PDF pages. On Free, a PDF is kept with its name and page count, and its text is not extracted. An article is the same kind of return: the note stays on the passage you highlighted. PDF reading and articles you come back to.
A passage with its time
At 4:26 in Huberman Lab's memory episode, the transcript names two researchers. This capture shows that moment in Omphalis, with an explanation open beside the passage. It is an explanation of a reference, not a claim that the product rewrites the episode.
A real product capture: Huberman Lab’s memory episode at 4:26, with an explanation of the two researchers named in the passage.
You add sources to a notebook and ask across that set. The notebook is the unit of work.
You open one podcast episode, PDF, or article as a reading page and stay with that piece.
Quotes and answers
Chat answers across the notebook include inline citations. Google's September 15, 2026 announcement says the new spoken conversations are grounded in your sources.
An answer cites the passages it used. On a podcast, those citations open in the transcript. A highlight stays on the passage, and opening it later takes you back there.
Podcasts
You can add audio files and YouTube videos. Audio Overviews turn sources into a spoken discussion or a short brief.
A supported episode link opens as a transcript with timestamps, speaker labels, and a section map, once the transcript is ready. The quote finder can also return verbatim quotes with timestamps when the source has them.
PDFs and articles
You can upload a PDF, a website, a Google Doc, or Slides and ask across them.
A PDF or an article opens as a cleaned reading page. The note stays on the passage. A PDF citation leads back to that passage, not to a timestamp. PDFs are read on paid plans and during the trial.
Study outputs
Study guides, briefings, mind maps, and Audio Overviews. The September 2026 announcement adds quizzes, flashcards, interactive learning overviews, and short video overviews of about 60 seconds, on the rollout schedule in that post.
The source itself, an explanation beside a hard passage, your note on the passage, and narration of the text. Omphalis does not make quizzes, flashcards, or overview podcasts.
Who should stay with NotebookLM?
Stay if the notebook is the point. Multi-source questions, Audio Overviews, study guides, mind maps, quizzes, flashcards, and the short video overviews announced in September are a real workflow, and Omphalis does not do that job. Visit NotebookLM. The longer task-by-task comparison is Omphalis vs NotebookLM. Podcast capture beside Snipd is covered on Omphalis vs Snipd.
Who might try Omphalis?
Try it with one episode, PDF, or article you have not finished. Read the page, open an explanation beside the passage that stopped you, leave a note, and open the citation to see whether it lands on that passage. If the study overview was what you wanted, you will know, and NotebookLM is still there.
There's a free plan. 30-day trial, no card required. Includes 200 voice minutes, 200 PDF pages and 15 assistant answers a day. After that, Free stays free. See plan allowances.
For some jobs, yes. Both let you ask about sources you bring in and follow a citation back. Omphalis fits when the job is one podcast episode, one PDF, or one article, and you want the quote or the answer tied to that passage. Keep NotebookLM when you want study material made from a set of sources.
What did Google add to NotebookLM in September 2026?
On September 15, 2026, Google announced more study tools for Gemini Notebook, the product formerly called NotebookLM: spoken conversations with a notebook in the mobile apps, an audio recorder for lectures, interactive learning overviews, more quiz formats, and short video overviews of about 60 seconds. The post says several of those were coming soon or over the following weeks, and that the spoken answers are grounded in your sources. It does not say citations were removed.
Does Omphalis keep a timestamp on a podcast quote?
When the source has timestamps, yes. A supported episode opens as a transcript with timestamps, speaker labels, and a section map once transcription is ready. Ask about that episode shows numbered sources you can open in the transcript. The quote finder on this site returns a few quotes taken word for word from a transcript or a public article, with a timestamp when the source has one. A quote that does not match the text is not shown.
Does a PDF answer include a timestamp?
No. A PDF opens as a cleaned reading page of extracted text. Ask cites the passages it used, and a highlight reopens that passage with the text around it. Keep the original PDF for figures, tables, equations, and layout. Timestamps belong to sources that have them, such as a podcast transcript.
Is there a free plan?
There's a free plan. 30-day trial, no card required. Includes 200 voice minutes, 200 PDF pages and 15 assistant answers a day. After that, Free stays free. Highlights and your own notes stay available on Free. On Free, a PDF is kept with its name and page count, and its text is not extracted into the reading view. Free includes limited typed Ask and no voice minutes. PDFs are read on paid plans and during the trial, within the trial's 200 PDF pages.
Who should stay with NotebookLM?
Stay if Audio Overviews, study guides, mind maps, quizzes, flashcards, or a conversation across a notebook of sources are the job you wanted. The September 15, 2026 update is more of that study workflow. Omphalis does not replace it.
