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How do I download videos from YouTube with subtitles / captions?

I'd tried by using youtube-dl, with --write-srt --str-lang flags but I always get:

WARNING: video has no closed captions.

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Well, does the video have closed captions? I cannot reproduce this issue for videos that have the CC sign available. Which video are you trying to download? Does it work with this one? – slhck♦ Oct 7 '12 at 20:31
Yes. Have the CC sign. For video that you have posted it worked fine. But for all that I had tried before it does not work, e.g for this video: youtube.com/watch?v=RHy9_RQbrnQ I get: WARNING: video has no closed captions unlike as you can see into youtube page. ` – Jack Oct 8 '12 at 0:29
See exaclty what I have tried: python youtube-dl --write-srt --srt-lang en http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHy9_RQbrnQ [youtube] Setting language [youtube] RHy9_RQbrnQ: Downloading video webpage [youtube] RHy9_RQbrnQ: Downloading video info webpage [youtube] RHy9_RQbrnQ: Extracting video information [youtube] RHy9_RQbrnQ: Downloading video subtitles WARNING: video has no closed captions – Jack Oct 8 '12 at 0:31

1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Make sure the video you're trying to download has actual subtitles uploaded from the owner.

For example, the one where it fails only offers automatic captioning, which works by analyzing the speech in the video and then transcribing it on the fly:

However, what you want is a video that has "real" captions. Those can be downloaded easily.

For example:

youtube-dl --write-srt --srt-lang en 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHy9_RQbrnQ'
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