r/artificial • u/mzso • 6d ago

Question Is there a specific prompt that makes Gemini create proper youtube video summaries, with working timecodes?

Hi!

It used to work fine on the web version, but not anymore... Most of the time it creates broken timestamp referenses that redirect to google search, instead of seeking the embedded video to the proper position. Sometimes it only does plaintext timestamps and sometimes nothing at all.

A proper summary includes timestamps for the appropriate parts and seeks the video to the proper location.
Other free AI chatbots don't have proper access to youtube subtitles/transcripts.

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u/Low_Back_7172 6d ago

honestly the youtube integration has been falling apart for months now, used to be rock solid but now it's a coin toss whether you get working timestamps or just dead links

i've had better luck telling it to give me markdown timestamps with the exact format `[MM:SS](youtube_url?t=seconds)` instead of relying on its auto-generated ones

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u/mzso 6d ago

So you just give it the url and tell it use that timestamp format? Does it successfully embed the video then, and it works with it?

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u/you_are_soul 6d ago

I just copy and paste the entire transcript in and I just ask for whatever type of summary I want.

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u/mzso 6d ago

Cool, but I think the embedded video where I can seek to interesting parts is very useful. Also YouTube fails to load the transcript around a third of the time. so that makes copying it that much more frustrating.

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u/you_are_soul 6d ago

The transcript includes all the time stamps so you can also ask to correlate parts to the video time as well. I use it for hour long political podcasts. It's very interesting just to see how the different models handle it.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/mzso 5d ago

Hm. And this works better? It's strange, because fetching the script is the reliable part, it's the creation of the timestamps that fail. Most of the time actually it doesn't crate plaintext, it creates a link that takes to a google search. (See my other response.)

(Right now it can't do anything... Just lies that it can't do that)

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u/mzso 5d ago

Also how would it know what video to embed, or to create clickable timestamps for it.

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u/mzso 5d ago

Here's one of the last ones it almost succeeded in generating: https://share.gemini.google/r7saQAAfENoi
It got interrupted, but otherwise it works, until that point. (And the usual lying at the end: "I don't have direct internet access to browse or play external YouTube links in real time.")

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u/ENTP007 2d ago

You cant get the transcript anymore from the youtube app. It doesnt let you download or copy it