How to Transcribe YouTube Videos Automatically

Many of us may not be aware of this, but YouTube has a number of helpful tools, like keyboard shortcuts and title and description translation. Similar techniques exist for transcribing YouTube videos. You can now obtain a trustworthy automatic transcription that can be quickly altered to perfection with little to no effort because voice recognition software has significantly improved over the years.

YouTube instantly transcribes the majority of the videos as soon as they are uploaded, making transcription relatively simple. In this article, I’ll outline two free methods for obtaining YouTube video transcriptions.

Method #1 Copy/Paste YouTube transcript

The majority of YouTube videos have their transcriptions done automatically using Google’s Voice Recognition technology. Also, it’s possible that the video’s creator physically transcribed the material and provided it to the readers.

You may quickly retrieve the transcript and copy it along with timestamps, regardless of the situation.

Here’s how to go about it:

1. Click on the More button below the video and select Transcript from the menu.
2. Below you ll be asked to select a language. Make your choice and you ll see a full transcript along with timestamps.
3. Now click and drag to highlight all the text and press Ctrl + C to copy the text. You can paste this text anywhere and your transcript will be ready.

Words that YouTube may have chosen incorrectly are immediately highlighted, making it simple to alter the transcript. To activate subtitles, simply click the CC button on the YouTube player. The subtitles will then appear in white.

The subtitles that may include errors are those that are greyed out. This allows you to simply edit the transcription. However, keep in mind that the owner of the video will not submit subtitles with grayed-out text.

Method #2 Transcribe with Google Doc

When an automatic or owner-uploaded transcript of the YouTube video is available, the aforementioned two techniques function perfectly. But, you can utilise Google Docs’ built-in voice typing tool to listen to the video audio and automatically type everything if you need to transcribe a video without a transcript being provided.

In order to get a good quality transcript, it is recommended to make the PCdirectly listen to the audio coming out of its speakers.

Here’s how to go about it:

1. In Windows, right-click on the sound icon in the taskbar and select Recording devices.
2. Now select “Stereo Mix” from the list and click “Set Default” to set it as default source of recording.

If your PC’s sound card (like mine) does not support the Stereo Mix option, you can download and install the VB Virtual Audio Cabletool to receive an alternate option in the same menu.

You should see a “Cable Output” option in the same sound choices after installing the tool’s drivers. Click “Set Default” after selecting this option.

Your PC will then listen to the audio coming from the speakers in order to record it. To begin the transcription, you simply need to launch Google Docs Voice typing and the necessary video at the same time.

Here’s how to go about it:

1. Open Google Docs in Chrome or any other Chromium based browsers (Voice Typing isn t supported in non-Chromium browsers).
2. Now create a new document and select“Voice typing” from the Tools menu on top.
3. A tiny box will show up with a microphone icon in the middle. Click on it to start recording.
4. Move to the YouTube video tab and play the video. Google Docs will automatically type when people will speak in the YouTube video.

You’ll have a good transcript of the movie at the end of this procedure, which will undoubtedly take as long as the video itself. More than 40 languages are supported by Google Docs voice typing, and you can switch between them by clicking the Voice typing box menu.

Given that both services rely on Voice Recognition technology, the final transcript ought to be on par with YouTube’s own automated captioning service.

Conclusion and suggestions

I enjoy watching YouTube videos with the captions on, and I can attest to how well-written and rarely inaccurate the automatic captions on YouTube are. With amazing precision, videos with even a little background noise can be transcripted.

Of course, you can always hire a professional to do it for you if you don’t want to edit your transcription or fix your punctuation. You can pay $20 to have an hour’s worth of video transcripted on a service like Fiverr.