5 ms·

Ask HN: Why YouTube doesn't let you search transcripts?

14 points by wseqyrku 2y ago

For a search engine company, I don't understand why this is not already implemented. Is there any risk to release a feature like that?

studymonkey 2y ago
check out https://lectura.xyz https://lectura.xyz. It’s a really powerful chatbot built to analyze YouTube videos. You can also easily search the transcript and jump to specific times in the video
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
KomoD 2y ago
My guess is that it's just simply not worth it for them
WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
I hope you get a good answer to this. I suspect Youtube cripples transcript usefulness because it aligns with what customers want. And customers are important to Youtube - while end users are something else.
josephcsible 2y ago
Because that would let you find what you want more quickly, so they wouldn't have as much time to show you ads.
- leros 2y ago
  I assume YouTube's core metric is watch time and so building features that reduce watch time is a no go. Not really related, but I thought of this. I used to work on a popular search engine. Our main metric started out as number of searches and number of results clicked on. That made sense as we were working on increasing the number of relevant results. Eventually we had to pivot the opposite direction because we wanted people to find the best result the fastest, which means less searches and less clicks on results. Kind of interesting how a core metric can flip like that. I could see YouTube potentially making lower watch time a goal if they make the experience of finding useful information so slow that people go elsewhere.
- muzani 2y ago
  They could make it a YouTube Premium feature.
- wseqyrku 2y ago
  They could still put some unskippable ad on the timestamp links like they do if you click on a video, I doubt if that's the reason.
- stuxnet79 2y ago
  Exactly, and the same explanation holds for any odd UI quirk you see in a for-profit SaaS. Spotify for example, has a lot of frustrating aspects to its UI, but everything makes sense in the context of $$$
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
librecell 2y ago
i’ve been wondering the same about twitter / earthx audio spaces. the public ones are playable to the public and are transcribed with automation in real time. many people listen to spaces after they’re over like a podcast or other form of broadcast recording. searching public twitter space transcripts would allow us to find more relevant things to consume perhaps. same with youtube. i wonder whether anything is logging and indexing these with a non-internal program; cursory searches seem to imply that it’s unlikely.
enymuss 2y ago
I use https://filmot.com/ https://filmot.com/ to search youtube captions. Found via Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/odj2gx/ive_built_a_search_engine_across_youtube_captions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/odj2gx/iv...
- gaws 2y ago
  > June 8, 2024 - YouTube has implemented new anti-crawling measures which hampers subtitle retrieval. Crawling is currently suspended and new data will not be loaded. Existing data is not affected. I am investigating potential options and will keep you updated. This change blocks multiple projects and players, including YouTube's own players, requiring a login to play videos.
- ReadCarlBarks 2y ago
  Alternative: https://youglish.com/ https://youglish.com/ (it supports other languages too).
mikewarot 2y ago
I generally copy / paste the whole transcript into Notepad++ then search it there as a workaround
runjake 2y ago
Only somewhat related: I've been using a variant of the following LLM prompt, obtained from Raycast Prompt Explorer[1], to get summaries of YouTube videos before I watch them. I use it with Raycast and the Raycast browser extension, but it's easily adapted for other AI browser extensions, as well as scripts and other launchers. It's helped cut out a lot of cruft. --BEGIN-PROMPT-- Create a summary of a YouTube video using its transcript. You will use the following template: """ ## Summary {Multiple sentences summarising the YouTube video} ## Notes {Bullet points that summarize the key points or important moments from the video’s transcript with explanations} ## Quotes {Extract the best sentences from the transcript in a list} """ Transcript: {browser-tab} --END-PROMPT-- 1. https://prompts.ray.so/ https://prompts.ray.so/

14 points by wseqyrku 2y ago

For a search engine company, I don't understand why this is not already implemented. Is there any risk to release a feature like that?

studymonkey 2y ago

check out https://lectura.xyz https://lectura.xyz. It’s a really powerful chatbot built to analyze YouTube videos. You can also easily search the transcript and jump to specific times in the video

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

KomoD 2y ago

My guess is that it's just simply not worth it for them

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago

I hope you get a good answer to this. I suspect Youtube cripples transcript usefulness because it aligns with what customers want. And customers are important to Youtube - while end users are something else.

josephcsible 2y ago

Because that would let you find what you want more quickly, so they wouldn't have as much time to show you ads.

leros 2y ago
I assume YouTube's core metric is watch time and so building features that reduce watch time is a no go. Not really related, but I thought of this. I used to work on a popular search engine. Our main metric started out as number of searches and number of results clicked on. That made sense as we were working on increasing the number of relevant results. Eventually we had to pivot the opposite direction because we wanted people to find the best result the fastest, which means less searches and less clicks on results. Kind of interesting how a core metric can flip like that. I could see YouTube potentially making lower watch time a goal if they make the experience of finding useful information so slow that people go elsewhere.
muzani 2y ago
They could make it a YouTube Premium feature.
wseqyrku 2y ago
They could still put some unskippable ad on the timestamp links like they do if you click on a video, I doubt if that's the reason.
stuxnet79 2y ago
Exactly, and the same explanation holds for any odd UI quirk you see in a for-profit SaaS. Spotify for example, has a lot of frustrating aspects to its UI, but everything makes sense in the context of $$$

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

librecell 2y ago

i’ve been wondering the same about twitter / earthx audio spaces. the public ones are playable to the public and are transcribed with automation in real time. many people listen to spaces after they’re over like a podcast or other form of broadcast recording. searching public twitter space transcripts would allow us to find more relevant things to consume perhaps. same with youtube. i wonder whether anything is logging and indexing these with a non-internal program; cursory searches seem to imply that it’s unlikely.

enymuss 2y ago

I use https://filmot.com/ https://filmot.com/ to search youtube captions. Found via Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/odj2gx/ive_built_a_search_engine_across_youtube_captions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/odj2gx/iv...

gaws 2y ago
> June 8, 2024 - YouTube has implemented new anti-crawling measures which hampers subtitle retrieval. Crawling is currently suspended and new data will not be loaded. Existing data is not affected. I am investigating potential options and will keep you updated. This change blocks multiple projects and players, including YouTube's own players, requiring a login to play videos.
ReadCarlBarks 2y ago
Alternative: https://youglish.com/ https://youglish.com/ (it supports other languages too).

mikewarot 2y ago

I generally copy / paste the whole transcript into Notepad++ then search it there as a workaround

runjake 2y ago

Only somewhat related: I've been using a variant of the following LLM prompt, obtained from Raycast Prompt Explorer[1], to get summaries of YouTube videos before I watch them. I use it with Raycast and the Raycast browser extension, but it's easily adapted for other AI browser extensions, as well as scripts and other launchers. It's helped cut out a lot of cruft. --BEGIN-PROMPT-- Create a summary of a YouTube video using its transcript. You will use the following template: """ ## Summary {Multiple sentences summarising the YouTube video} ## Notes {Bullet points that summarize the key points or important moments from the video’s transcript with explanations} ## Quotes {Extract the best sentences from the transcript in a list} """ Transcript: {browser-tab} --END-PROMPT-- 1. https://prompts.ray.so/ https://prompts.ray.so/