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Skillv1.0.0

video-content-extractor

Extract key frames from MP4 videos at configurable intervals, run Tesseract OCR, and generate structured Markdown reports with video metadata and timestamped text transcripts.

by sickn33(0) 0 installs
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Free account. Installing gives you the manifest plus copy-paste snippets.

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About

Imported from sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills (skills/video-content-extractor/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills --skill video-content-extractor. Copyright stays with the author.

Video Content Extractor

Overview

Automatically extracts key frames from MP4 video files at configurable time intervals, performs OCR text recognition on each frame, and generates a structured Markdown report. The report includes video metadata (duration, resolution, codecs) and frame-by-frame OCR transcripts with timestamp references.

This skill is designed for Codex CLI and requires FFmpeg and Tesseract OCR installed on the local machine.

When to Use This Skill

  • Use when you need to extract text content from video presentations, lectures, or screencasts.
  • Use when you want to create searchable transcripts from video files without embedded subtitles.
  • Use when you need to analyze video content programmatically and generate structured summaries.
  • Use when the user asks to "read what is on screen" or "extract the content from this video."

How It Works

Step 1: Analyze Video Metadata

The skill uses ffprobe to extract video metadata: duration, resolution, frame rate, codec information, and file size.

Step 2: Extract Key Frames

Using FFmpeg, the skill captures frames at the configured interval (default: every 30 seconds). Each frame is saved as a timestamped JPEG image.

Step 3: OCR Text Recognition

Each extracted frame is processed by Tesseract OCR. If the default PSM mode returns no meaningful text, it falls back to fully automatic page segmentation.

Step 4: Generate Markdown Report

All extracted data is assembled into a structured Markdown document.

Examples

Example 1: Basic Extraction

Agent prompt: Use the video-content-extractor skill to extract content from lecture.mp4

Output generates lecture.md and lecture_frames/ directory.

Example 2: Custom Interval

Parameters: video_path, output_dir, interval(seconds), lang Extract every 60 seconds with English-only OCR: python scripts/extract_video.py recording.mp4 ./output 60 eng

Example 3: Bilingual Content

Extract with default Chinese + English OCR: python scripts/extract_video.py lecture.mp4 . 15 chi_sim+eng

Best Practices

  • Use shorter intervals (10-15s) for fast-paced content with frequent text changes.
  • Use longer intervals (30-60s) for presentation slides or slow lectures to reduce duplicate frames.
  • For Chinese content, ensure Tesseract Chinese language pack is installed (chi_sim).

Limitations

  • Requires FFmpeg and Tesseract OCR to be installed and accessible via PATH.
  • Tesseract OCR accuracy depends on video quality, text size, and font clarity.
  • Does not extract audio or perform speech-to-text transcription.
  • Frame extraction is time-based (not scene-change-based), which may produce near-duplicate frames.
  • Large videos with short intervals can generate many frames - ensure sufficient disk space.

Security and Safety Notes

  • This skill only reads video files and writes extracted frames and Markdown reports.
  • It does NOT send any data over the network - all processing is local.
  • FFmpeg and Tesseract are invoked with fixed, pre-vetted arguments.
  • The skill does not modify or delete the original video file.

Common Pitfalls

  • Problem: Tesseract returns garbled text Solution: Ensure the correct language pack is installed. Run tesseract --list-langs to verify.

  • Problem: FFmpeg fails with "not found" Solution: Make sure FFmpeg is on PATH. Run ffmpeg -version to verify.

  • Problem: OCR is slow on large videos Solution: Increase the interval parameter to reduce frames processed.

Related Skills

  • @media-summarizer - For summarizing video content using visual and audio cues.
  • @document-ocr - For OCR on static images or scanned documents without video processing.

Use it

Copy one of these into your project. Installing also returns the manifest and these snippets.

yaml
targets:
  - https://api.opensmartroute.ai/api/v1/registry/sickn33-agentic-awesome-skills-video-content-extractor/manifest   # or paste the manifest below

Manifest

An Open Capability Manifest: the router reads it to know what this does, what it costs and when to pick it.

sickn33-agentic-awesome-skills-video-content-extractor.ocm.jsonjson
{
  "ocm": "1",
  "id": "sickn33-agentic-awesome-skills-video-content-extractor",
  "kind": "skill",
  "name": "video-content-extractor",
  "description": "Extract key frames from MP4 videos at configurable intervals, run Tesseract OCR, and generate structured Markdown reports with video metadata and timestamped text transcripts.",
  "publisher": "sickn33",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "capabilities": {
    "domains": [
      "general"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "skill-md",
      "video",
      "ocr",
      "ffmpeg",
      "tesseract",
      "frame-extraction",
      "media",
      "skills-sh"
    ],
    "languages": [
      "en"
    ]
  },
  "quality_prior": 0.6,
  "examples": [
    "Extract key frames from MP4 videos at configurable intervals, run Tesseract OCR, and generate structured Markdown reports with video metadata and timestamped text transcripts."
  ],
  "primary": false,
  "metadata": {
    "source": {
      "provider": "skills.sh",
      "repository": "https://github.com/sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills",
      "path": "skills/video-content-extractor/SKILL.md",
      "ref": "HEAD",
      "url": "https://github.com/sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills/blob/HEAD/skills/video-content-extractor/SKILL.md",
      "key": "sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills/skills/video-content-extractor/SKILL.md"
    }
  },
  "instructions": "# Video Content Extractor\r\n\r\n## Overview\r\n\r\nAutomatically extracts key frames from MP4 video files at configurable time intervals, performs OCR text recognition on each frame, and generates a structured Markdown report. The report includes video metadata (duration, resolution, codecs) and frame-by-frame OCR transcripts with timestamp references.\r\n\r\nThis skill is designed for Codex CLI and requires FFmpeg and Tesseract OCR installed on the local machine.\r\n\r\n## When to Use This Skill\r\n\r\n- Use when you need to extract text content from video presentations, lectures, or screencasts.\r\n- Use when yo",
  "cost": {
    "context_tokens": 940
  }
}

Fetch it by URL: GET /api/v1/registry/sickn33-agentic-awesome-skills-video-content-extractor/manifest?version=1.0.0

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