Video Transcript

Video Transcript

Produce a faithful transcript, with raw text retained for comparison. Run the bundled scripts/transcribe.py; resolve its path relative to this Skill's directory. Paths below assume the current directory is the Skill root.

Choose the input and engine

1. If a complete, readable transcript already exists, use it for interpretation instead of retranscribing. --from-text formats existing UTF-8 plain text. SRT/VTT need cue parsing first; they are not accepted as plain transcript text.
2. Prefer local ASR unless the user has chosen cloud processing or an established preference authorizes it. --engine groq uploads audio to Groq; never silently fall back from local processing to a cloud service.
3. For a strict “offline / nothing leaves my machine” request, use --offline with existing local files, executable, and model. Do not read the resulting transcript into a remote agent context; report file paths and process status. Local transcription without this strict constraint may be followed by normal agent review.
4. For web inputs, use references/sources.md. For missing dependencies, use references/setup.md. The downloader does not bypass access controls.

Run

# Local media. Set WHISPER_CPP_BIN and WHISPER_MODEL during setup.
python scripts/transcribe.py recording.mp4 --output transcripts/session-01

# Explicitly authorized cloud transcription; key comes from GROQ_API_KEY.
python scripts/transcribe.py recording.mp4 --engine groq --output transcripts/session-02

# Strict offline mode.
python scripts/transcribe.py recording.wav --offline --output transcripts/session-03

# Existing text: no media processing or API calls.
python scripts/transcribe.py raw.txt --from-text --output transcripts/session-04

For local mixed speech, use the known dominant language as a hint (for example --language zh for a Chinese course with English phrases) and check that both languages survive. In a synthetic test, local auto rendered Chinese speech in English; explicit zh retained both. If the language is unknown, start with auto and inspect a short sample before a long run. Groq auto-detects per chunk. Language selection is a recognition hint, not a request to translate. Inspect --help for explicit model and tool paths. The output directory must be new; source files remain untouched.

Review and deliver

• A zero exit code plus a nonempty transcript.md means the pipeline completed, not that every word is correct. Read metadata.json for warnings.
• Except in strict offline mode, compare beginning, middle, ending, names, and numbers with raw.txt and available source evidence. Inspect audio around uncertain words when tools allow. Do not invent inaudible words.
• Formatting preserves all nonblank lines by default. Repeated-line removal (--deduplicate) and simplified Chinese conversion (--simplified) require a relevant user request. Raw text always survives for comparison.
• Keep transcription separate from summaries. Correct terms only with evidence; describe remaining uncertainty. Do not label a merely generated draft verified.
• Deliver the transcript bundle, name the engine, and state any material limits. A failed chunk aborts the job; do not present partial text as a complete result.

The bundle contains transcript.md, raw.txt, metadata.json, and local-engine raw.srt when produced. Segmentation boundaries may cut words in cloud mode; see references/sources.md for current limits.