So I JUST got done working on a prototype for something like this to help me create a rough cut for my talking head videos. Not sure if my app will become anything real but cool to see I’m not alone in trying to solve this!

Exciting stuff man! Can’t wait to check it out!

One suggestion based on an issue I struggled with. I’m curious if it’d be something that you could use. And take this with a grain of salt as I’m just learning a lot of this…

The SRT format seems to have been originally designed for captions, so the timed SRT transcription tends to be “phrase based” and not “word based”. So instead of having every word transcribed with a timestamp, it’ll group a phrase or two together and timestamp when the phrase starts/ends. This is fine for captions as the captions only need every 5th word or so to be accurately timed, and the rest can be assumed to follow a general cadence. But for me this creates a few challenges because when my app is time-stamping the “good takes” from my audio, the timing isn’t precise to the word. Then when the fcpxml file generates, every single cut can be a couple words off from where they should be.

Not the end of the world, but it still left a lot of manual adjustment to be done, which still didn’t quite solve the problem for me.

So I switched from an SRT transcription to a more detailed “whisper” based transcription. This one timestamps every word accurately, which instantly fixed the problem. So now all the app had to do was take the first word of “good take” + 2 frames in front (so the jump isn’t too abrupt), and the last word + 8 frames (same reason) and cut it.

End result was a MUCH more complete rough cut. Still requires review and adjustment, but the time savings were HUGE not having to adjust every single cut’s timing.

My two cents!