Video Transcriber

A simple Electron application to transcribe and translate video files using OpenAI's Whisper API.

Features

• Load local video files.
• Extract audio using ffmpeg.
• Transcribe audio using OpenAI Whisper.
• Display transcript synchronized with video playback.
• Highlight words in the transcript as they are spoken.
• Prompts for OpenAI API key on first run and stores it securely.

Prerequisites

• Node.js and npm (or yarn)
• An OpenAI API Key

Installation

1. Clone the repository (or download the source code).
2. Navigate to the project directory in your terminal.
3. Install dependencies:

   npm install

Running in Development Mode

To run the application locally for development:

npm start

The application will launch, and you may be prompted for your OpenAI API key if it's the first time or the key is invalid.

Building the Application

To build the application package (e.g., for macOS, Windows, Linux):

npm run build

This command uses electron-builder to create distributable files in the dist/ directory based on the configuration in package.json.

• Icons: Place your custom icons (icon.icns, icon.ico, icon.png) in the build/ directory before running the build command.
• Output: For macOS, this command (as currently configured) creates a .zip file and a directory containing the .app bundle (e.g., dist/mac-arm64/).

Creating a macOS PKG Installer (Optional)

To create a user-friendly .pkg installer for macOS that handles permissions correctly for unsigned apps:

1. Ensure the app is built: Run npm run build first to generate the .app bundle (e.g., in dist/mac-arm64/).

2. Ensure the postinstall script exists: Make sure scripts/postinstall exists and is executable (chmod +x scripts/postinstall). This script runs xattr -cr on the installed application.

3. Ensure the component plist exists: Make sure component.plist exists in the project root, correctly referencing the app bundle details.

4. Run pkgbuild: Execute the following command in the project root directory:

   pkgbuild --root "dist/mac-arm64/" \
            --component-plist "component.plist" \
            --install-location "/Applications" \
            --scripts "scripts" \
            --version "1.0.0" \
            --identifier "com.yourapp.videotranscriber.pkg" \
            dist/VideoTranscriberInstaller-1.0.0.pkg 

   • (Adjust --root, --version, and --identifier if necessary)

5. Distribute: Share the generated dist/VideoTranscriberInstaller-*.pkg file.

This installer will copy the application to /Applications and run the post-install script to remove the quarantine attribute, allowing users to run the unsigned app after installation (they might still need to right-click -> Open the very first time).