Show HN: SubSmith – Turn your own videos into language-learning material

<p>I've been learning Japanese for a few years and kept running into a similar problem. I'd find a video I wanted to learn from, hear a useful sentence, and then realise that turning that sentence into something I could study later was both time consuming and draining at times.<p>I would end up jumping between a video player, subtitles/transcription, a dictionary, screenshots, audio clips and Anki. So I built SubSmith to bring that workflow together.<p>You can drop a video or audio file into it, generate a transcript locally and then use the transcript alongside the media to:<p>* look up words and sentences * replay individual lines * edit the transcript * save useful sentences with their original context/audio * export them as Anki cards<p>The important part for me is that it works with your own media. It isn't tied to a particular streaming service or library, so I can use the random anime episode, podcast, lecture, etc. that I'm actually interested in studying.<p>It's an offline-first desktop app, and transcription happens locally rather than sending the media to a transcription API.<p>I'm sharing it here because I'm now more interested in finding out where this workflow breaks down for other people rather than adding features randomly now that I have solid core/base.<p>For example:<p>* Would you actually save sentences from your own media? * Which part of this process feels like too much work? * Does having the audio/context attached make creating an Anki card more useful? * Would you prefer this to work inside your existing video player/browser? * Is installing a desktop app a significant barrier? * And does requiring an account before starting the free trial make you give up?<p>The current version does require an account to start the trial, and I'm trying to work out whether that's meaningful friction for the people who would actually use this.<p>It's free to try, and I'd particularly appreciate feedback from people who already learn languages through their own videos, anime, films, podcasts or other media.<p>I'm the developer, so I'll be around in the comments to answer questions and discuss how it works.<p><a href="https://subsmith.app" rel="nofollow">https://subsmith.app</a></p> <hr /> <p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49476894">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49476894</a></p> <p>Points: 7</p> <p># Comments: 4</p>