Download Commands Reference

A. Download Transcript

Primary: yt-dlp

yt-dlp --write-auto-sub --sub-lang en --skip-download --sub-format vtt \
  -o "{vault_root}/transcripts/{youtube_id}" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v={youtube_id}"

VTT Cleanup (required after yt-dlp download)

The .vtt file contains timestamps, cue position markers, and duplicate lines. Clean it before analysis:

1. Strip all timestamp lines (lines matching \d{2}:\d{2}.*-->)
2. Strip cue position markers (lines like align:start position:0%)
3. Remove blank lines
4. Deduplicate consecutive identical lines
5. Save the cleaned text as {vault_root}/transcripts/{youtube_id}.txt

Fallback: youtube-transcript-api

Use if yt-dlp fails (e.g., no auto-captions available):

"{python_path}" -c "
from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
transcript = YouTubeTranscriptApi.get_transcript('{youtube_id}', languages=['en'])
for entry in transcript:
    print(entry['text'])
" > "{vault_root}/transcripts/{youtube_id}.txt"

Where {python_path} is config.python_path from the tracking database.

This produces clean text directly — no VTT cleanup needed.

B. Download Slides PDF

"{python_path}" -m gdown "https://drive.google.com/uc?id={google_drive_id}" \
  -O "{vault_root}/slides/{google_drive_id}.pdf"

Where {python_path} is config.python_path from the tracking database.

Then read the PDF to understand slide content and visual structure.

C. Download Video (for slide extraction)

When no PDF or PPTX is available, download the video to extract slides from frames.

mkdir -p "{vault_root}/slides-rebuild/{youtube_id}"
yt-dlp -f "bestvideo[height<=720][ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[height<=720][ext=mp4]/best[height<=720]" \
  --merge-output-format mp4 \
  -o "{vault_root}/slides-rebuild/{youtube_id}/{youtube_id}.mp4" \
  "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v={youtube_id}"

After download, run the extraction script from references/video-slide-extraction.md. The script extracts frames, detects the slide region, deduplicates, and produces a PDF at slides/{youtube_id}.pdf. Delete the video after extraction to save space.

D. Batch Video Download

For processing many playlist talks at once, download videos in parallel:

# Download up to 3 videos concurrently
for yt_id in ID1 ID2 ID3 ...; do
  (
    yt-dlp -f "bestvideo[height<=720][ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[height<=720]" \
      --merge-output-format mp4 \
      -o "{vault_root}/slides-rebuild/${yt_id}/${yt_id}.mp4" \
      "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=${yt_id}" 2>/dev/null
    echo "Downloaded: ${yt_id}"
  ) &
  # Limit concurrency
  [ $(jobs -r -p | wc -l) -ge 3 ] && wait -n
done
wait

Then run the extraction script on each downloaded video sequentially.