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BytesAgain › Skills › Video Transcript Downloader
🦀 ClawHub

Video Transcript Downloader

by @steipete

Download videos, audio, subtitles, and clean paragraph-style transcripts from YouTube and any other yt-dlp supported site. Use when asked to “download this video”, “save this clip”, “rip audio”, “get subtitles”, “get transcript”, or to troubleshoot yt-dlp/ffmpeg and formats/playlists.

Versionv1.0.0
Downloads12,738
Installs97
Stars⭐ 82
#writing#video#audio#legal#communication
TERMINAL
clawhub install video-transcript-downloader

📖 About This Skill

name: video-transcript-downloader description: Download videos, audio, subtitles, and clean paragraph-style transcripts from YouTube and any other yt-dlp supported site. Use when asked to “download this video”, “save this clip”, “rip audio”, “get subtitles”, “get transcript”, or to troubleshoot yt-dlp/ffmpeg and formats/playlists.

Video Transcript Downloader

./scripts/vtd.js can:

  • Print a transcript as a clean paragraph (timestamps optional).
  • Download video/audio/subtitles.

    • Transcript behavior:

  • YouTube: fetch via youtube-transcript-plus when possible.
  • Otherwise: pull subtitles via yt-dlp, then clean into a paragraph.

    • Setup

    cd ~/Projects/agent-scripts/skills/video-transcript-downloader && npm ci

    Transcript (default: clean paragraph)

    ./scripts/vtd.js transcript --url 'https://…'
./scripts/vtd.js transcript --url 'https://…' --lang en
./scripts/vtd.js transcript --url 'https://…' --timestamps
./scripts/vtd.js transcript --url 'https://…' --keep-brackets

    Download video / audio / subtitles

    ./scripts/vtd.js download --url 'https://…' --output-dir ~/Downloads
./scripts/vtd.js audio --url 'https://…' --output-dir ~/Downloads
./scripts/vtd.js subs --url 'https://…' --output-dir ~/Downloads --lang en

    Formats (list + choose)

    List available formats (format ids, resolution, container, audio-only, etc):

    ./scripts/vtd.js formats --url 'https://…'

    Download a specific format id (example):

    ./scripts/vtd.js download --url 'https://…' --output-dir ~/Downloads -- --format 137+140

    Prefer MP4 container without re-encoding (remux when possible):

    ./scripts/vtd.js download --url 'https://…' --output-dir ~/Downloads -- --remux-video mp4

    Notes

  • Default transcript output is a single paragraph. Use --timestamps only when asked.
  • Bracketed cues like [Music] are stripped by default; keep them via --keep-brackets.
  • Pass extra yt-dlp args after -- for transcript fallback, download, audio, subs, formats.

    • ./scripts/vtd.js formats --url 'https://…' -- -v

    Troubleshooting (only when needed)

  • Missing yt-dlp / ffmpeg:

    • brew install yt-dlp ffmpeg

  • Verify:

    • yt-dlp --version
ffmpeg -version | head -n 1

    ⚙️ Configuration

    cd ~/Projects/agent-scripts/skills/video-transcript-downloader && npm ci

    📋 Tips & Best Practices

  • Default transcript output is a single paragraph. Use --timestamps only when asked.
  • Bracketed cues like [Music] are stripped by default; keep them via --keep-brackets.
  • Pass extra yt-dlp args after -- for transcript fallback, download, audio, subs, formats.

    • ./scripts/vtd.js formats --url 'https://…' -- -v