We may all have heard the story about the engineer, psychologist and economist stranded on a desert island together. There arrives on shore a crate of cans of food. The stragglers are desperate for food but here in the sand with lapping shore how could they open the cans? They agreed that each of them should come up with their solution. The engineer begins, ” ..if we just create a lever out of the palm tree and propel it up in the air at least 160 feet then the weight of the can if over 12 ounces achieving speeds on the return will hit the sand and…. “. The other two interrupted him, “..way over-complicated and very unrealistic.” Next the psychologist, “… think of the beans within, their history and upbringing, if we can ask and listen then over time they will express their unconscious, come out of the can….” They shut the psychologist down as being predictably whacked and unrealistic. One more chance! Can the economist come up with a way? He begins, ” First, ……………Assume a can opener..”
End of story.
The point is we can usually assume that some software or hardware solution DOES exist for most of our problems and blocks. My daughter worked for a time for Michael Porter of Harvard Business School and related that that is the way he thinks, and she thinks. THat is, “someone must have figured this out and coded a solution.” I have tried that attitude and been amazed at the positive results.
Today I needed to find a way to transpose one of my earlier narrated YouTubes into a blog post. I could play through it, freeze frame it as it went , and type out my overlay words. OR… I could assume that someone at Google has developed already a YouTube audio to text capability.
A Google search for “transcribe youtube video to text” came up with a raft (no pun intended) solutions.
So I began to dig through. The first solution had me digging into chrome development tools to drop in some specialized javascript code. I found this whole behind the scenes process quite off putting as I was not used to going here:
I dropped that route and searched for an “easier way”.
This YouTube set of instructions for transcribing videos from Herman Drost seemed clear at first, but I found his screens and directions — “go to this, pick that item, etc.” bore NO resemblance to what I found on my own screens of Youtube. It could have been dated or out of country? He’s in Australia.
I finally found a google support site with the simple answer:
And I found it worked…
Here's What I Found 