Trans - Video Transcription Tool

Quick command-line tool to transcribe videos and audio files to text.

Features

• Local file support: Transcribe audio (mp3, wav, m4a, flac, etc.) and video (mp4, mkv, avi, etc.) files directly
• Multi-platform support: YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch (VODs and clips)
• Automatic source selection: Tries native captions first (YouTube), falls back to Whisper AI
• Speaker diarization: Identify who said what (requires pyannote-audio)
• Multiple output formats: TXT, SRT, VTT, JSON, or all formats at once
• Whisper model selection: Choose from tiny, base, small, medium, or large models
• Language support: Auto-detect or specify language (en, es, fr, etc.)
• Clipboard integration: Automatically copy transcripts to clipboard (cross-platform)
• Batch processing: Process multiple videos in one command — URLs downloaded concurrently
• Persistent config: Save your preferred model, format, and output directory
• Cache management: Transcripts cached with TTL, inspect or clear via trans cache
• Clean filenames: Auto-generated names based on video titles
• Quiet mode: Minimal output for scripting

Installation

Via pip (recommended)

# Basic installation
pip install trans-cli

# With speaker diarization support
pip install trans-cli[diarize]

From source

git clone https://github.com/ree-see/trans.git
cd trans
pip install -e .

# With optional features
pip install -e ".[diarize]"

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• FFmpeg (for audio extraction)

Install FFmpeg:

# macOS
brew install ffmpeg

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg

# Fedora
sudo dnf install ffmpeg

Usage

All transcription goes through the transcribe subcommand (or trans transcribe):

Local Files

# Audio files
trans transcribe recording.mp3
trans transcribe interview.wav
trans transcribe ~/Downloads/podcast.m4a

# Video files (audio auto-extracted)
trans transcribe meeting.mp4
trans transcribe lecture.mkv

# With speaker identification
trans transcribe --diarize meeting.mp4

# Higher quality model
trans transcribe --model medium conference_talk.mp3

URLs

# YouTube (uses native captions when available)
trans transcribe "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."

# Custom output name
trans transcribe -o my_video "https://tiktok.com/@user/video/123"

# Twitch VOD
trans transcribe "https://twitch.tv/videos/123456789"

# Twitch clip
trans transcribe "https://clips.twitch.tv/FunnyClipName"

# Copy to clipboard automatically
trans transcribe -c "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."

Output Formats

# Plain text (default)
trans transcribe "URL"

# SRT subtitles
trans transcribe -f srt "URL"

# VTT subtitles
trans transcribe -f vtt "URL"

# JSON with metadata
trans transcribe -f json "URL"

# All formats at once
trans transcribe -f all "URL"

Whisper Models

trans transcribe -m tiny   "URL"    # Fastest, lower accuracy
trans transcribe -m base   "URL"    # Balanced (default)
trans transcribe -m small  "URL"    # Better accuracy
trans transcribe -m medium "URL"    # High accuracy
trans transcribe -m large  "URL"    # Best accuracy, slowest

Language Options

trans transcribe "URL"         # Auto-detect (default)
trans transcribe -l en "URL"   # English
trans transcribe -l es "URL"   # Spanish
trans transcribe -l fr "URL"   # French
trans transcribe -l ja "URL"   # Japanese

Speaker Diarization

Identify different speakers in the transcript:

trans transcribe --diarize "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."

# Specify number of speakers (improves accuracy)
trans transcribe --diarize --num-speakers 2 "URL"

# With subtitles
trans transcribe -d -f srt "URL"

Output example (txt):

[Speaker 1]
Hello and welcome to the show.
Today we have a special guest.

[Speaker 2]
Thanks for having me!
I'm excited to be here.

Requirements:

• pyannote-audio package: pip install pyannote-audio
• HuggingFace token (free): https://huggingface.co/settings/tokens
• Accept model license: https://huggingface.co/pyannote/speaker-diarization-3.1

pip install pyannote-audio
huggingface-cli login          # or: export HF_TOKEN=hf_your_token_here

Batch Processing

# Multiple inputs (URLs downloaded concurrently, transcribed with shared model)
trans transcribe "URL1" "URL2" "URL3"

# Mix local files and URLs
trans transcribe recording.mp3 "URL1" meeting.mp4

# Quiet batch
trans transcribe -q "URL1" "URL2" "URL3"

Advanced Options

# Save output to a specific directory
trans transcribe --output-dir ~/transcripts "URL"

# Keep downloaded audio file
trans transcribe -k "URL"

# Add timestamp to filename (prevents overwrites)
trans transcribe -t "URL"

# Skip cache lookup
trans transcribe --no-cache "URL"

# Always use Whisper (skip native caption check)
trans transcribe --force-whisper "URL"

# TikTok with cookies
trans transcribe --cookies cookies.txt "https://tiktok.com/@user/video/123"

Cache Management

Transcripts are cached automatically (default TTL: 30 days):

# Show cache stats
trans cache stats

# Clear all cached transcripts
trans cache clear

Persistent Configuration

Save your preferences so you don't have to repeat flags:

# Show current config (and config file path)
trans config show

# Set defaults
trans config set model small
trans config set format srt
trans config set output_dir ~/transcripts
trans config set clipboard true
trans config set quiet true
trans config set cache.ttl_days 60
trans config set diarization.hf_token hf_your_token_here

Config is stored in the OS-appropriate location:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/trans/config.toml
• Linux: ~/.config/trans/config.toml
• Windows: %APPDATA%\trans\config.toml

Examples

Quick transcription to clipboard

trans transcribe -c "https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

Create subtitles for video editing

trans transcribe -f srt -m small -o my_subtitles "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."

Transcribe a foreign language video

trans transcribe -l es -f all "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."

Batch research videos, quietly

trans transcribe -q \
  "https://youtube.com/watch?v=video1" \
  "https://youtube.com/watch?v=video2" \
  "https://youtube.com/watch?v=video3"

Set-and-forget config workflow

trans config set model small
trans config set output_dir ~/transcripts
trans config set clipboard true
# Now every transcription uses these defaults:
trans transcribe "URL"

File Naming

• Default: Auto-generated from video/file title → How_to_Use_Python.txt
• Custom: trans transcribe -o my_notes "URL" → my_notes.txt
• With timestamp: trans transcribe -t "URL" → How_to_Use_Python_20260222_153045.txt
• Custom directory: trans transcribe --output-dir ~/docs "URL" → ~/docs/How_to_Use_Python.txt

Supported Formats

Format	Extension	Use case
txt	.txt	Plain text, notes
srt	.srt	Video editing
vtt	.vtt	Web players
json	.json	Full metadata + timestamps
all	all above	Everything at once

Supported File Types

Audio: mp3, wav, m4a, flac, ogg, opus, aac, wma Video (audio auto-extracted): mp4, mkv, avi, mov, webm, flv, wmv, m4v, mpeg, mpg

Command Reference

trans [--version] [--help] COMMAND

Commands:
  transcribe   Transcribe video/audio URLs or local files
  cache        Manage the transcript cache
  config       Manage persistent configuration

trans transcribe [OPTIONS] INPUTS...

Options:
  -o, --output PATH        Output base path (no extension, single input only)
  --output-dir DIR         Directory for output files
  -m, --model MODEL        Whisper model: tiny, base, small, medium, large
  -l, --language LANG      Language code (e.g. en, es). Auto-detect if unset.
  -f, --format FORMAT      Output format: txt, srt, vtt, json, all
  -c, --clipboard          Copy transcript to clipboard
  -k, --keep-audio         Keep downloaded audio file
  -t, --timestamp          Add timestamp to output filename
  -q, --quiet              Minimal output (errors only)
  --cookies PATH           Path to cookies.txt for authenticated downloads
  --no-cache               Skip cache lookup
  --force-whisper          Skip native captions, always use Whisper
  -d, --diarize            Enable speaker diarization
  --num-speakers N         Number of speakers (helps diarization accuracy)

Twitch Notes

Twitch videos rarely have native captions, so Whisper is used automatically. For long VODs use -m tiny or -m base for speed.

TikTok Notes

TikTok aggressively blocks datacenter IPs. If you see "IP address is blocked":

1. Use cookies: Export from your browser with a "Get cookies.txt" extension:

   trans transcribe --cookies cookies.txt "https://tiktok.com/@user/video/123"
   

2. Run from a residential IP (home internet, not a VPS)
3. Use a residential VPN

Troubleshooting

Error	Fix
No such file or directory: 'ffmpeg'	brew install ffmpeg or apt install ffmpeg
Whisper is slow	Use a smaller model: -m tiny
Wrong language detected	Specify explicitly: -l en
TikTok blocked	See TikTok Notes above

Development

# Install with dev dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests (52 tests, all offline)
pytest test_trans.py

# Lint / format
ruff check trans/
black trans/

Credits

Built with:

• yt-dlp — Video/audio downloading
• faster-whisper — Speech recognition
• FFmpeg — Audio processing
• Typer — CLI framework
• pyannote-audio — Speaker diarization (optional)