Video Subtitle Generator

A command-line tool that automatically transcribes videos and generates subtitles using OpenAI's Whisper. It can transcribe audio in various languages and translate it to English.

Prerequisites

• Python > 3.7 < 3.13
• FFmpeg installed on your system
• uv package installer (recommended) or pip

Installing FFmpeg

• Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install ffmpeg
• macOS: brew install ffmpeg

Installing uv (Recommended)

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Installation

1. Clone this repository or download the files
2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

# Create virtual environment

uv venv --python 3.12

# Or

python -m venv .venv

# Activate virtual environment
source .venv/bin/activate

3. Install dependencies using uv (recommended) or pip:

# Using uv (faster)
uv pip install -r requirements.txt

# Or using pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

Basic usage:

python main.py input_video.mp4

Options:

python main.py input_video.mp4 [options]

Options:
  -o, --output OUTPUT    Path to the output video file (default: input_video_with_subs.mp4)
  -m, --model MODEL     Whisper model size: small, medium, large (default: medium)
  -l, --language LANG   Source language code (optional, will auto-detect if not specified)
  -t, --temp-dir DIR    Directory for temporary files (default: temp)

Examples:

# Specify output file
python main.py input_video.mp4 -o output.mp4

# Use a larger model for better accuracy
python main.py input_video.mp4 -m large

# Process French audio
python main.py input_video.mp4 -l fr

# Specify custom temp directory
python main.py input_video.mp4 -t /path/to/temp

Models

Available Whisper models:

• small: Good balance of speed and accuracy
• medium: Better accuracy, slower
• large: Best accuracy, slowest