| # ⚡ Universal Media Transcriber | |
| Convert **YouTube, YouTube Music, Spotify, and direct audio/video URLs** into transcript `.txt` files — extremely fast. | |
| --- | |
| ## ✨ Features | |
| | Feature | Detail | | |
| |---|---| | |
| | **Native captions** | YouTube captions grabbed instantly — no audio download | | |
| | **Whisper fallback** | `faster-whisper` (up to 4× faster than OpenAI Whisper) | | |
| | **Spotify** | Tracks / albums / playlists via `spotdl` → Whisper | | |
| | **Direct audio** | `.mp3 .mp4 .wav .m4a .webm .ogg` and more | | |
| | **Playlist support** | Auto-expand playlists, channels, albums | | |
| | **Batch + parallel** | Multiple URLs, concurrent workers | | |
| | **Smart cache** | Re-run same URL instantly | | |
| | **Auto-install** | Deps install themselves on first run | | |
| --- | |
| ## 🚀 Quick Start | |
| ```bash | |
| # Single YouTube video | |
| python transcriber.py https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID | |
| # Multiple URLs | |
| python transcriber.py URL1 URL2 URL3 | |
| # From a file (one URL per line) | |
| python transcriber.py --file urls.txt | |
| # Full YouTube playlist | |
| python transcriber.py --playlist https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID | |
| # Spotify track | |
| python transcriber.py https://open.spotify.com/track/TRACK_ID | |
| # Force Whisper (ignore captions) | |
| python transcriber.py URL --whisper | |
| # Larger model for better accuracy | |
| python transcriber.py URL --model large-v3 | |
| # Merge all into one file | |
| python transcriber.py URL1 URL2 --merge | |
| # Custom output folder | |
| python transcriber.py URL --output ./my_transcripts | |
| ``` | |
| --- | |
| ## 🛠 Options | |
| ``` | |
| urls One or more media URLs | |
| --file, -f Text file with one URL per line | |
| --output, -o Output directory (default: ./transcripts) | |
| --merge, -m Merge all transcripts into one file | |
| --whisper, -w Force Whisper (skip caption check) | |
| --model tiny | base | small | medium | large-v2 | large-v3 | |
| --workers Parallel workers (default: 4) | |
| --no-cache Disable transcript cache | |
| --playlist Expand playlist/channel into individual videos | |
| --clear-cache Wipe the cache | |
| ``` | |
| --- | |
| ## 📦 Dependencies (auto-installed) | |
| - `yt-dlp` — universal media downloader | |
| - `youtube-transcript-api` — instant YouTube captions | |
| - `faster-whisper` — optimized Whisper (CTranslate2) | |
| - `spotdl` — Spotify downloader | |
| - `rich` — terminal UI | |
| **Requires:** `ffmpeg` installed on your system: | |
| ```bash | |
| # macOS | |
| brew install ffmpeg | |
| # Ubuntu/Debian | |
| sudo apt install ffmpeg | |
| # Windows | |
| winget install ffmpeg | |
| ``` | |
| --- | |
| ## ⚡ Speed Guide | |
| | Source | Method | Speed | | |
| |---|---|---| | |
| | YouTube with captions | Native API | < 2 sec | | |
| | YouTube no captions | Whisper `base` | ~realtime | | |
| | Spotify music | spotdl + Whisper | depends on length | | |
| | Direct audio | Whisper | ~realtime | | |
| **Model accuracy vs speed:** | |
| `tiny` → `base` → `small` → `medium` → `large-v3` | |
| (fastest) (most accurate) | |
| --- | |
| ## 📄 Output Format | |
| ``` | |
| ====================================================================== | |
| TITLE : My Video Title | |
| UPLOADER : Channel Name | |
| DURATION : 0:15:42 | |
| SOURCE : youtube | |
| METHOD : native_captions | |
| URL : https://youtu.be/... | |
| ====================================================================== | |
| [0:00:00] Hello and welcome to this video... | |
| [0:00:05] Today we're going to talk about... | |
| ``` | |
| --- | |
| ## 🗂 URL File Format | |
| ``` | |
| # urls.txt — lines starting with # are comments | |
| https://youtu.be/VIDEO1 | |
| https://youtu.be/VIDEO2 | |
| https://open.spotify.com/track/TRACK_ID | |
| https://example.com/podcast.mp3 | |
| ``` |