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VideoCaptioner Subtitles

Transcribe videos, translate and polish subtitles, and burn them into video via the CLI.

Source Download skill
Repository
HKUDS/CLI-Anything
Stars
58,084
Licence
Apache-2.0
Files
1 file

What it does

Once installed, the agent can turn a video's speech into subtitle files (SRT, ASS, TXT or JSON), clean up and translate those subtitles into one of 38 languages, and either attach them to the video or permanently burn them into the picture. It drives a command-line tool called cli-anything-videocaptioner, which wraps the VideoCaptioner backend. It can also render a single preview frame to check subtitles before a final export.

Great for

  • Creators who want fast subtitles and translations for short videos
  • People localising a video into another language using free translators
  • Teams that want a scripted or agent-driven captioning pipeline

Skip it if

  • Projects needing guaranteed accuracy on legal, medical or broadcast captions, since automatic speech recognition and translation can make errors that need human review
  • Users who cannot install Python 3.10-3.12 and FFmpeg, since setup will fail without them
  • Sensitive recordings if you do not want audio or subtitle text sent to third-party services, because the whisper-api and LLM options send data over the network

Try asking

  • “Transcribe interview.mp4 to an SRT file using the free bijian engine”
  • “Translate subtitles.srt into English with the free Bing translator”
  • “Run the full pipeline on lecture.mp4 and hard-burn English subtitles into the video”
  • “Render a single preview frame at 5 seconds to check subtitle placement before exporting”
Step-by-step guide: how to use VideoCaptioner SubtitlesInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 1 original files, the Apache-2.0 licence and an attribution note.

    skills.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip skills.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip skills.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Start with the free bijian transcriber and Bing translator to test the pipeline before adding paid or API-key options
  • Use the review command with an approved script and a low --max-script-diff-ratio when wording must match exactly
  • Run styles first to confirm which subtitle style options your installed backend supports, since many style flags are not stable

What's inside

  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from HKUDS/CLI-Anything under the Apache-2.0 licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.