Via the CCAC: google2srt for grabbing YouTube subtitles
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Claude Almansi
Jan 29, 2014, 6:25:08 AM1/29/14
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Hi All!
About "Via the CCAC" in the subject line:
CCAC = Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning. It has a discussion list, primarily dedicated to captioning advocacy actions, but where practical aspects of captioning and captions are also often examined. Only CCAC members can view the posts of, and participate in, this list: so if you are practicing and/or advocating captioning, it is well worth joining the CCAC : in general (see the public info in its http://ccacaptioning.org/ site), but also in order to profit from and participate in the discussions of its list.
About "google2srt":
This app was mentioned in a recent discussion of the list, and though the discussion itself is private, I surmise it's OK to share the link for downloading the app: http://google2srt.sourceforge.net/ (page available in Catalan, English, Spanish, Italian and Brazilia Portuguese).
It's a for-free multi-platform Java applet and it's also free-as-in-freedom (licensed under the GNU GPL) that allows you to grab subtitles added by humans to a YouTube video and the automatic captions that are generated by the YT/Google speech recognition software. Moreover, the Help subpage is very clearly written.
Possible uses in conjunction with Amara:
Ideas for Amara subtitlers:
Considering that google2srt is a free-as-in-freedom app, couldn't it be somehow integrated into the Amara software in order to:
About "Via the CCAC" in the subject line:
CCAC = Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning. It has a discussion list, primarily dedicated to captioning advocacy actions, but where practical aspects of captioning and captions are also often examined. Only CCAC members can view the posts of, and participate in, this list: so if you are practicing and/or advocating captioning, it is well worth joining the CCAC : in general (see the public info in its http://ccacaptioning.org/ site), but also in order to profit from and participate in the discussions of its list.
About "google2srt":
This app was mentioned in a recent discussion of the list, and though the discussion itself is private, I surmise it's OK to share the link for downloading the app: http://google2srt.sourceforge.net/ (page available in Catalan, English, Spanish, Italian and Brazilia Portuguese).
It's a for-free multi-platform Java applet and it's also free-as-in-freedom (licensed under the GNU GPL) that allows you to grab subtitles added by humans to a YouTube video and the automatic captions that are generated by the YT/Google speech recognition software. Moreover, the Help subpage is very clearly written.
Possible uses in conjunction with Amara:
Ideas for Amara subtitlers:
- When a YouTube video is added (streamed to) Amara before subtitles are added to it, the subtitles added later don't get streamed to the Amara page. This can happen in particular when users connect/sync their YouTube channel with Amara. With google2srt, you can still download those later-added subtitles and reupload them to the Amara page: that's how I added the English subs to http://www.amara.org/en/videos/I36bebc3C9x4/info/ this morning.
- When an Amara page is created from a YouTube video that later disappears or is made private, and there is another already subtitled YT version of the video, but with slight different timing (say an intro jingle has been added or removed): google2srt allows you to resync the subtitles via its "Delay (seconds)" textbox.
- While YouTube's automatic captions are not yet fit to be offered for human consumption, when the audio is good enough, they sometimes can be edited in less time than would be needed to do them from scratch. In such cases, they could be grabbed with google2srt, then uploaded for editing to the corresponding Amara page, as being in one of the Amara inexistent languages (Metadata: Geo, Metadata: Twitter or Metadata: Wikipedia). Once they have been edited, they could be downloaded and reuploaded as being in the real language.
Considering that google2srt is a free-as-in-freedom app, couldn't it be somehow integrated into the Amara software in order to:
- grab the automatic captions and add them as in one of the Amara inexistent languages (see above), or as in one to-be-added Amara inexistent language (e.g. something like: "Metadata: autocaptions")
- grab the human captions added to a YouTube video after the connecting / syncing to Amara has been done? After all, when users do this syncing/connecting to their YouTube channel, they give Amara full powers to manage their YouTube account, including to "View and manage [their] videos and playlists, [and their] YouTube activity". While it still escapes me why anyone would grant such powers to anyone else, let alone to a web app, many people are apparently doing so. Wouldn't these powers be enough to allow this a-posteriori grabbing?
Claude Almansi
Mar 9, 2014, 9:36:12 AM3/9/14
to universal-subt...@googlegroups.com
Practical application of what I wrote in the former message in this topic (see https://groups.google.com/d/msg/universal-subtitles-deaf-hoh/pJEEY5NTP7k/8cdMjbKkwY0J):
I used google2srt to grab the .srt file of YouTube automatic captions for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIQ0Ia57jf4, then I uploaded it to add the Metadata: Geo subtitles to the Amara The Russell Tribunal on Palestine - The Movie video page, and now I'm editing them towards fitness for human consumption, with the new beta editor. And Ester Garau, who added the video to Amara and to the Captions Requested team, is working on the English subtitles.
All who want to join the fun are welcome!
Best,
Claude
I used google2srt to grab the .srt file of YouTube automatic captions for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIQ0Ia57jf4, then I uploaded it to add the Metadata: Geo subtitles to the Amara The Russell Tribunal on Palestine - The Movie video page, and now I'm editing them towards fitness for human consumption, with the new beta editor. And Ester Garau, who added the video to Amara and to the Captions Requested team, is working on the English subtitles.
All who want to join the fun are welcome!
Best,
Claude
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