Extract Knowledge and Insights from Video Content: 3 Approaches
How I Integrate YouTube Videos and Audio Transcriptions in My Personal Knowledge Management System. An Overview of Reader, Readwise, and Snipd.
Hey everyone! I want to share how I extract knowledge from video content as part of my knowledge management system. I mainly do this with YouTube videos, but these methods also work for audio files and locally stored videos.
I've spent years finding the best way to handle this challenge. Previously, I created a Shortcut to use Overcast and highlight using custom-made SRT files, but newer tools have made the process much simpler. Consider this an update to my earlier approach.
I'll cover three methods using Readwise/Reader and Snipd. You can watch the video or read on for a quick breakdown of each approach.
Method 1: YouTube Integration with Reader
This is the most straightforward method. Reader automatically detects YouTube videos and downloads the transcript with them.
There have been a couple of improvements since this feature was released. Most recently, for example, if the video's creator has uploaded captions in different languages, you can select that within Reader. You can also adjust the video display size as it appears on top of the transcript. Additionally, there's an AI cleanup option that helps with formatting for the auto-generated captions on YouTube.
When you play a YouTube video, the transcript below will automatically scroll in sync with the video. If you need to highlight something, just pause the video and highlight it like you would any other text.
Best Use Cases
Technical demonstrations
Data-heavy presentations
Visual tutorials
Educational content with important graphics
Limitations
I believe most Reader users simply default to this approach, it definitely is nice to have this as an option but I don't think it's the best for situations where the video doesn't need all your attention. It's also not possible to go this route for videos that are not hosted on YouTube.
If you want to consume & highlight video or audio content while multitasking or doing other tasks, one of the other two methods I'll mention might be more helpful.
Method 2: The Snipd Approach
Snipd is an app that will transform how you listen to content. It has powerful AI features that help you extract knowledge and quickly find the most important insights. Although it was mainly created for podcasts, it now allows users to share YouTube links or upload their own audio files for transcription and access to various AI tools.
Snipd is my favorite tool for extracting knowledge from videos that do not require my full visual attention. I haven't found any other app that offers such high-quality transcriptions and highlighting for video and audio in such an easy way. For YouTube content, I can share links directly on my phone. If I'm dealing with video or audio files that aren't on YouTube, I upload from my desktop.
Key Features
Superior and high quality AI-powered transcription
Hands-free highlighting with AirPods
Optional Readwise synchronization
Content summaries
Chapter detection based on topic being covered
Use AI to chat with your content
Quickly find related content with same speakers
A LOT more
Workflow Tips
Upload content through the website or share to the app on mobile
Listen while performing other activities
Double-tap AirPods to capture highlights
Review and refine highlights on a regular basis
If you prefer to manually sync your Highlights. Export them as a markdown file (for Bear) and share the file to THIS SHORTCUT
Method 3: TTS on Reader
If you're interested in the second method but don’t want to invest in a separate application, or if Snipd has more features than you think you’ll need, Reader offers a fantastic text-to-speech option with high-quality AI voices that can help you achieve something similar.
Ideally, it'd be awesome if Reader users could play YouTube videos with the screen off and highlight text using our AirPods, but that's not an option. Additionally, anytime users save a Youtube link to Reader, it will be recognized as YouTube content, so TTS is deactivated.
What you can do:
Transcribe your Video: To go this route, you’ll need to transcribe your own audio or video. There's several tools to download the videos from YT, but my favorite is Downie. Then there's apps like MacWisper, SuperWhisper, or Aiko that make the transcription process very easy and fast.
AI Processing: Ensure you run the transcription through AI for proper paragraph separation, as this is necessary for the AirPods highlighting feature in the Reader mobile app to work correctly.
Adding Content: Email the transcription to the address provided by Reader to add your content.
Using TTS Feature: Once you have the text in Reader, you can utilize the text-to-speech feature and highlight on the go by double-tapping your AirPods.
While this method isn't perfect (and the AirPods highlighting is less precise than with Snipd), it’s a budget-friendly alternative that works well and may give you the flexibility you need.
Closing Thoughts
I believe none of these methods are perfect, and there’s still plenty of room for improvement. For instance, it would be great if Reader could improve highlighting while using AirPods, and it would be fantastic if there were a way to highlight on YouTube with the screen off. Currently, highlighting on the go using the TTS method can be frustratingly imprecise. That's why my favorite tool for this is Snipd. Honestly, though, I've been grandfathered into the original price, and I'm unsure if I would subscribe at the higher rate if I didn't have that. It is super powerful and offers lot, but I don't use all its features.
I hope that by sharing this, I can help some of you and inspire ideas to improve your PKM workflows. If you’ve found a better tool, alternative, or method than what I’ve mentioned, please let me know. I’m always trying to improve the way I do things.
I also invite you to watch this video where I explain how I deal with my highlights once they're in Readwise—if you haven’t watched it already. It may provide additional insights.
Thanks for reading!
If you liked this you may also enjoy some content I have up on my YT Channel! I don’t hang around social media a lot, but when I do I’m on IG or Twitter. You can also check out some of my online classes, listen to my music, or in case you haven’t already, subscribe to my weekly newsletter. Thank you for reading!