audio to text and video to text

Transcribe audio and video files into text using OpenAI's Whisper API. Use this skill whenever a user wants to convert any audio or video file to text — including MP3, MP4, WAV, M4A, OGG, WEBM, MOV, AVI, FLAC, and more. Trigger this skill for any request involving: "transcribe", "convert audio to text", "speech to text", "get transcript of", "extract audio from video", "meeting notes from recording", "subtitles", "captions", or similar. Also trigger when the user uploads or references a media file and asks what was said, discussed, or mentioned in it. If unsure whether audio/video transcription is involved, use this skill.

Transcription Skill

Converts audio and video files into clean, readable text using OpenAI's Whisper API and ffmpeg for media handling.

Overview

This skill handles the full pipeline:

1. Media extraction — use ffmpeg to strip audio from video files and convert to a Whisper-compatible format
2. Chunking — split large files (>25 MB) into overlapping segments to stay within API limits
3. Transcription — send each chunk to OpenAI's Whisper API
4. Assembly — merge chunk transcripts, adjusting timestamps, into a single clean output
5. Post-processing — optionally clean up with Claude (punctuation, speaker labels, summaries)

Requirements

• ffmpeg must be installed (which ffmpeg to verify — it's usually pre-installed in claude.ai's environment)
• OpenAI API key stored in the environment as OPENAI_API_KEY — the user must provide this
• Python packages: openai, pydub (install via pip if needed)

Quick Start

When a user provides a media file, run the transcription script:

# Install dependencies if missing
pip install openai pydub --break-system-packages -q

# Run transcription
python /home/claude/transcription/scripts/transcribe.py \
  --input "/path/to/media/file" \
  --output "/mnt/user-data/outputs/transcript.txt" \
  --api-key "$OPENAI_API_KEY"

See scripts/transcribe.py for the full implementation.

Supported Formats

Category	Formats
Audio	mp3, wav, m4a, ogg, flac, aac, opus, wma
Video	mp4, mov, avi, mkv, webm, wmv, m4v

ffmpeg handles extraction from any of these.

Options & Flags

Flag	Default	Description
--model	whisper-1	Whisper model to use (whisper-1, gpt-4o-transcribe)
--language	auto-detect	ISO 639-1 language code (e.g. en, ar, fr)
--format	txt	Output format: txt, srt, vtt, json
--timestamps	off	Include timestamps in output
--chunk-size	20	Max chunk size in MB (must be ≤ 25)
--prompt	none	Context hint to improve accuracy (e.g. domain vocab)

Output Formats

• txt — plain text, ideal for most uses
• srt — SubRip subtitle format (for video players)
• vtt — WebVTT format (for web video)
• json — full Whisper JSON with segments and timestamps

Step-by-Step Workflow

1. Check for the file

Ask the user to upload the file or provide a local path. Check:

ls /mnt/user-data/uploads/

2. Check ffmpeg and install deps

which ffmpeg && ffmpeg -version 2>&1 | head -1
pip install openai pydub --break-system-packages -q 2>&1 | tail -3

3. Get the API key

If OPENAI_API_KEY is not set in the environment, ask the user:

"Please provide your OpenAI API key — it starts with sk-. You can get one at https://platform.openai.com/api-keys"

4. Run the script

python /home/claude/transcription/scripts/transcribe.py \
  --input "<file_path>" \
  --output "/mnt/user-data/outputs/transcript.txt"

5. Post-process (optional but recommended)

After transcription, offer to:

• Clean up punctuation/formatting with Claude
• Summarize the content
• Extract action items, speakers, or key topics
• Translate to another language

Use the transcript text directly in the conversation for these steps.

Handling Large Files

The script automatically splits files > 20 MB into overlapping chunks (with 1-second overlap for continuity). Each chunk is transcribed separately and the results are merged.

For very long recordings (> 1 hour), warn the user it may take a few minutes and show progress.

Error Handling

Error	Fix
AuthenticationError	Invalid API key — ask user to verify
RateLimitError	Wait 60s and retry, or use --chunk-size 10
InvalidRequestError: file too large	Reduce --chunk-size below 25
ffmpeg not found	sudo apt install ffmpeg or brew install ffmpeg
No audio stream found	File may be corrupt or wrong format

Example Interaction

User: "Can you transcribe this meeting recording?"
[uploads meeting.mp4]

→ Check file exists in /mnt/user-data/uploads/
→ Run transcribe.py on it
→ Save transcript to /mnt/user-data/outputs/
→ present_files() to the user
→ Offer to summarize or extract action items

Notes for openclaw.ai

• Always save output to /mnt/user-data/outputs/ so users can download it
• Use present_files() to share the transcript file with the user after saving
• For business users, suggest the srt or vtt format if they're adding captions to video
• The --prompt flag is useful for technical/domain-specific content: pass a few domain keywords to improve accuracy