name

yt-transcript

description

Extract text transcripts from ANY video platform: YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Bilibili, Twitch, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Reddit, Douyin. Use when user shares a video link and wants the text content, transcript, subtitles, or spoken words. Auto-detects platform, uses fastest method available (API → subtitles → Whisper). Triggers on: video URLs, YouTube links, TikTok links, Facebook video, lấy nội dung, transcript, lấy text từ video, subtitle, phụ đề, đọc truyện, extract text from video, get transcript, lấy truyện, transcribe.

Universal Video Transcript Extractor

Extract clean text from video on any platform — auto-detects and uses the fastest method.

Dependencies

pip install youtube-transcript-api faster-whisper

Also needs yt-dlp and ffmpeg on PATH.

Supported Platforms (11+)

YouTube · TikTok · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter/X · Bilibili · Twitch · Vimeo · Dailymotion · Reddit · Douyin + anything yt-dlp supports

Pipeline (auto-fallback)

URL → detect platform →
  YouTube? → youtube-transcript-api (~2s, best) →
  Any platform? → yt-dlp subtitle extraction (~10s) →
  Fallback → yt-dlp download audio + faster-whisper GPU (~5-15 min)

Quick Usage

Single video (any platform)

python scripts/universal_transcript.py "URL" --lang vi

Multiple videos

python scripts/universal_transcript.py "URL1" "URL2" "URL3"

Force Whisper (skip subtitle check)

python scripts/universal_transcript.py "URL" --whisper

YouTube-only (lighter script, no Whisper dep)

python scripts/yt_transcript.py "URL" --lang vi
python scripts/yt_transcript.py "PLAYLIST_URL"
python scripts/yt_transcript.py "CHANNEL_URL" --channel

Options

--lang vi — language code (default: vi)
--out DIR — output directory (default: ./transcripts/)
--format txt|srt|json — output format (default: txt)
--whisper — skip subtitle methods, go straight to Whisper

Scripts

scripts/universal_transcript.py — main script, all platforms, Whisper fallback
scripts/yt_transcript.py — YouTube-only, lighter (no Whisper needed), supports playlists/channels

Fallback Strategy Details

See references/fallback-methods.md for:

VTT parsing details
Whisper model options (large-v3 vs small)
OpenAI Whisper API alternative
Cookie handling for TikTok/Facebook

Notes

YouTube transcript API = fastest (no download, ~2s/video)
yt-dlp handles 1000+ sites — if it has subtitles, we extract them
Whisper large-v3 needs ~3GB VRAM (RTX 3090 recommended)
Some platforms (TikTok, Facebook) may need browser cookies for download
Script auto-tries without cookies first, then cycles chrome→firefox→edge