Video Understanding

Video Understanding Skill

Download videos and transcribe their content for analysis.

Prerequisites

• yt-dlp installed (pip install yt-dlp or brew install yt-dlp)
• ffmpeg installed (brew install ffmpeg or apt install ffmpeg)
• Whisper installed (pip install openai-whisper)

Pipeline

1. Download Video

# Download video with yt-dlp
yt-dlp -o "assets/downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "<VIDEO_URL>"

# For best quality
yt-dlp -f "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best" \
  -o "assets/downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "<VIDEO_URL>"

# For audio only (faster)
yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 \
  -o "assets/downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "<VIDEO_URL>"

2. Extract Audio (if downloaded video)

ffmpeg -i "assets/downloads/video.mp4" \
  -vn -acodec mp3 -ab 128k \
  "assets/downloads/audio.mp3"

3. Transcribe with Whisper

# Basic transcription
whisper "assets/downloads/audio.mp3" \
  --model base \
  --output_format txt \
  --output_dir output/

# Higher quality (slower)
whisper "assets/downloads/audio.mp3" \
  --model medium \
  --output_format all \
  --output_dir output/

# With timestamps
whisper "assets/downloads/audio.mp3" \
  --model base \
  --output_format srt \
  --output_dir output/

4. Read and Analyze Transcript

Read the generated transcript file from output/
Summarize key points
Extract quotes and timestamps
Identify speakers if multiple

Model Options

Output Formats

• txt - Plain text transcript
• srt - SubRip subtitles with timestamps
• vtt - WebVTT subtitles
• json - Detailed JSON with word-level timing
• all - All formats

Tips

• Use base model for speed, medium for accuracy
• Add --language en to force English detection
• Use --task translate to translate to English
• Check assets/downloads/ for downloaded files
• Store transcripts in output/transcripts/