[Question] Formatting of auto generated subtitles from YouTube

[dainiusb]

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Description of your issue, suggested solution and other information

The formatting of subtitles from youtube looks kinda strange to me. Why are there separate words at first and then parts of sentences with those words? Subtitle editing programs that I've tried could not parse the file properly. Is it supposed to look like that?

I like that there are separate words with timestamps. I want to parse them later for my project and import into Audacity as labels.

Here's what the beginning of the file looks like:

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en
Style:
::cue(c.colorCCCCCC) { color: rgb(204,204,204);
 }
::cue(c.colorE5E5E5) { color: rgb(229,229,229);
 }
##

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.149 align:start position:0%
 
hi<c.colorE5E5E5><00:00:00.359><c> I</c><00:00:00.630><c> have</c></c><c.colorCCCCCC><00:00:00.690><c> a</c><00:00:00.930><c> rather</c><00:00:01.170><c> simple</c><00:00:01.740><c> and</c><00:00:01.829><c> stupid</c></c>

00:00:02.149 --> 00:00:02.159 align:start position:0%
hi<c.colorE5E5E5> I have</c><c.colorCCCCCC> a rather simple and stupid
 </c>

00:00:02.159 --> 00:00:04.340 align:start position:0%
hi<c.colorE5E5E5> I have</c><c.colorCCCCCC> a rather simple and stupid</c>
<c.colorE5E5E5>idea</c><c.colorCCCCCC><00:00:02.639><c> it</c><00:00:02.879><c> can</c><00:00:03.120><c> help</c><00:00:03.330><c> increase</c><00:00:03.689><c> the</c><00:00:03.929><c> travel</c></c>

00:00:04.340 --> 00:00:04.350 align:start position:0%
<c.colorE5E5E5>idea</c><c.colorCCCCCC> it can help increase the travel
 </c>

00:00:04.350 --> 00:00:06.680 align:start position:0%
<c.colorE5E5E5>idea</c><c.colorCCCCCC> it can help increase the travel
range<00:00:04.589><c> of</c><00:00:04.740><c> electric</c><00:00:05.160><c> cars</c><00:00:05.460><c> to</c><00:00:05.609><c> infinity</c><00:00:06.359><c> which</c></c>

00:00:06.680 --> 00:00:06.690 align:start position:0%
range of electric cars to infinity which

[VietTPham]

it is using .vtt format, use --convert-subs srt to have it convert to srt format

[dainiusb]

Yeah, that works, but it got rid of the separate words with timestamps and I need that data :(

[dstftw]

This is what youtube serves for vtt subtitles. You may also try downloading ttml.