| name | vidscribe |
| description | Transcribe video to text from any platform (Bilibili, YouTube, Douyin, Twitter/X, TikTok, Vimeo, etc.). Use when the user provides a video URL and asks for transcript, subtitles, text content, or speech-to-text conversion. |
Video Transcription (vidscribe)
Transcribe any video URL to text using cloud ASR APIs or a local Whisper model.
Prerequisites
System tools (must be installed):
yt-dlp: downloads audio from 1000+ sites (pip install yt-dlp)ffmpeg: audio format conversion (brew install ffmpeg / apt install ffmpeg)
Python package:
vidscribe: the transcription tool (pip install vidscribe)
If vidscribe is not installed, install it first:
pip install vidscribe
Provider Setup
vidscribe supports 5 ASR providers. At least one must be configured via environment variables in ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:
| Provider | Env Vars | Best For |
|---|
| Volcengine (火山引擎) | VOLC_APP_KEY, VOLC_ACCESS_KEY | Chinese content, cheapest |
| OpenAI Whisper | OPENAI_API_KEY | Multilingual, best quality |
| Aliyun (阿里云) | DASHSCOPE_API_KEY | Chinese, free trial |
| Deepgram | DEEPGRAM_API_KEY | Fastest, $200 free credit |
| Local (faster-whisper) | None (install: pip install vidscribe[local]) | Offline, free |
If no provider credentials are found, ask the user which provider they want to use and help them set it up.
Usage
vidscribe "<VIDEO_URL>" -o "<OUTPUT_PATH>"
vidscribe "<VIDEO_URL>" -p <provider> -o "<OUTPUT_PATH>"
vidscribe "<VIDEO_URL>" -l ja-JP -o "<OUTPUT_PATH>"
Parameters:
<VIDEO_URL>: Any video URL (Bilibili, YouTube, Douyin, Twitter, TikTok, Vimeo, etc.)-o <OUTPUT_PATH>: Where to save the transcript (omit to print to stdout)-p <provider>: Force a specific provider (volcengine, openai, aliyun, deepgram, local)-l <LANG>: Language hint (e.g. ja-JP, ko-KR, de-DE)--keep-audio: Also save the downloaded audio file
Workflow
The tool automatically:
- Downloads audio via yt-dlp and converts to MP3
- Uploads to a temporary host (cloud providers only) for the ASR API to access
- Sends to the configured ASR provider for transcription
- Outputs the full transcript text
Typical runtime: 1-3 minutes for a 15-20 min video (cloud providers).
Example
User says: "把这个视频转成文字 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1xxxx"
vidscribe "https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1xxxx" -o /tmp/transcript.txt
Then read and present the output file to the user.
Troubleshooting
| Issue | Fix |
|---|
vidscribe: command not found | Run pip install vidscribe |
| No provider available | Ask user to set env vars for any provider (see table above) |
| yt-dlp download fails | Check URL validity; some sites need cookies (--cookies-from-browser) |
| Upload fails | Retry automatically; if persistent, try a different provider |
| Empty transcript | Audio may be inaccessible; re-upload or switch provider |
Cost
| Provider | Cost per hour of audio |
|---|
| Volcengine | ¥0.8 ($0.11) |
| OpenAI | ~$0.36 |
| Aliyun | ¥1.2 ($0.17) |
| Deepgram | ~$0.26 |
| Local | Free |
