Easier way to sync YouTube videos (beta)

Updates
1

If a transcript is available on YouTube for a video you are trying to sync, there is now a quicker way to automatically apply those timings to your transcript in Readlang. It’s still a bit fiddly but faster than manually syncing from scratch. Here’s how:

  1. Add the video transcript as usual via the upload page.
  2. Open the new text to read and in the reader page sidebar, click the YouTube tab and add the YouTube video URL and click “Add YouTube Video”:
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    The page should reload with the YouTube video visible.
  3. Open the YouTube tab again and you should notice a textarea in which you can paste a transcript with timings:
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  4. Leave this for now, and in a new tab open the video on the YouTube website, and click the …more button to expand the description section.
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  5. Scroll down and look for the “Show Transcript” button and click it:
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  6. Select the whole transcript (the times and text together) and copy it to your clipboard:
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  7. Go back to the Readlang tab and paste the whole thing into the textarea:
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(all timestamps should be at the very start of a line in MM:SS format)

  1. Click the “Submit transcript” button.

If everything has worked properly, you should be able to play the video and the transcript will be synchronized as well as possible given the timing information from YouTube.

This is in beta so you may encounter issues. Please let me know how it goes!

6 Likes
2

I think it would be less confusing if there was a second way to add new content. When I start at the upload page, do I need to upload the transcript with or without timestamps? It would be nice if I could paste the YouTube URL and the transcript when I am adding it to my library.

1 Like
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I agree. I’ve been considering adding a new upload flow for YouTube videos. For now I just took the route which was easiest to implement to get something out there that you can try out. The idea is that for now you need to upload a transcript without timestamps but with nice readable formatting for the initial upload, and then you add the transcript with timestamps (but not necessarily so readable) later from the reader page sidebar. I realize that this feels a bit clunky right now.

4

Hi Steve,
I have just joined Readlang and I’m really enjoying it - thanks very much.
The revised YouTube sync process it is definitely better than manually syncing.
I added the transcript with time code when I uploaded the text initially and then had to manually remove it before proceeding to the next step. Then I realised that this can be done in YouTube very easily. Just adding the process here in case it is useful to anyone:
To remove the time code from a YouTube transcript, you can toggle timestamps off in the transcript window:

  1. Find the YouTube video you want the transcript for
  2. Click the three horizontal dots below the video
  3. Select Open transcript
  4. Click the three vertical dots above the transcript
  5. Click Toggle timestamps
2 Likes
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Glad you’re enjoying Readlang, and thanks for the tip!

1 Like
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Steve, you seriously are the most responsive developer I have ever seen on a website. Thank you for being helpful and for this fantastic site that is helping my Spanish language learning journey!

I really like this tip about syncing video times. I am working through a large YouTube video series, Se Curioso TedEd. It has over 400 titles addressing a wide range of general knowledge topics with advanced vocabulary and (mostly) amazing narrators. I have about 12 videos synced so far, and I plan to do all of them. I am sharing the videos on a public shelf here:
Sé Curioso TED-ED YouTube videos

1 Like
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Thanks for doing this! This looks like an amazing resource and I’ll be watching a few myself :slight_smile: