Youtube – Add subtitles to a video of another user on YouTube

Use "Network inspector" function of your browser's script debugger and find second request to timedtext page after enabling transcribed subtitles then just copy all that request to the addressbar to download them in native YouTube xml format.

To get SRT version run this code in the debugger console for that xml's page:

function makeTimeline (time) {
    var string, time_array = [], milliseconds = Math.round(time % 1 * 1000).toString();

    while (3 > milliseconds.length) {
        milliseconds = '0' + milliseconds;
    }

    time_array.push(Math.floor(time / (60 * 60)));
    time_array.push(Math.floor((time - (time_array[0] * 60 * 60)) / 60));
    time_array.push(Math.floor(time - ((time_array[1] * 60) + (time_array[0] * 60 * 60))));

    for (var i = 0, il = time_array.length; i < il; i++) {
        string = '' + time_array[i];
        if (1 === string.length) {
            time_array[i] = '0' + string;
        }
    }
    return time_array.join(':') + ',' + milliseconds;
};

function returnSRT (data) {
    var caption, previous_start, start, end, temp, captions = data.getElementsByTagName('text'), srt_output = '';

    for (var i = 0, il = captions.length; i < il; i++) {
        caption = captions[i];
        start = +caption.getAttribute('start');

        if (0 <= previous_start) {
            temp = captions[i - 1].textContent.replace(/</g, '&lt;').replace(/>/g, '&gt;');
            srt_output += i + '\n' + makeTimeline(previous_start) + ' --> ' + makeTimeline(start) + '\n' + temp + '\n\n';
            previous_start = -1;
        }

        if ( end = +caption.getAttribute('dur'))
            end = start + end;
        else {
            if (captions[i + 1]) {
                previous_start = start;
                continue;
            }
        }

        temp = caption.textContent.replace(/</g, '&lt;').replace(/>/g, '&gt;');
        srt_output += i + '\n' + makeTimeline(start) + ' --> ' + makeTimeline(end) + '\n' + temp + '\n\n';
    };
    return srt_output;
}

returnSRT(document.documentElement)

Also here is bookmarklet version of the script:

javascript:(function(){function%20makeTimeline(time)%7Bvar%20string%2Ctime_array%3D%5B%5D%2Cmilliseconds%3DMath.round(time%251*1000).toString()%3Bwhile(3%3Emilliseconds.length)%7Bmilliseconds%3D'0'%2Bmilliseconds%3B%7Dtime_array.push(Math.floor(time%2F(60*60)))%3Btime_array.push(Math.floor((time-(time_array%5B0%5D*60*60))%2F60))%3Btime_array.push(Math.floor(time-((time_array%5B1%5D*60)%2B(time_array%5B0%5D*60*60))))%3Bfor(var%20i%3D0%2Cil%3Dtime_array.length%3Bi%3Cil%3Bi%2B%2B)%7Bstring%3D''%2Btime_array%5Bi%5D%3Bif(1%3D%3D%3Dstring.length)%7Btime_array%5Bi%5D%3D'0'%2Bstring%3B%7D%7Dreturn%20time_array.join('%3A')%2B'%2C'%2Bmilliseconds%3B%7D%3Bfunction%20returnSRT(data)%7Bvar%20caption%2Cprevious_start%2Cstart%2Cend%2Ctemp%2Ccaptions%3Ddata.getElementsByTagName('text')%2Csrt_output%3D''%3Bfor(var%20i%3D0%2Cil%3Dcaptions.length%3Bi%3Cil%3Bi%2B%2B)%7Bcaption%3Dcaptions%5Bi%5D%3Bstart%3D%2Bcaption.getAttribute('start')%3Bif(0%3C%3Dprevious_start)%7Btemp%3Dcaptions%5Bi-1%5D.textContent.replace(%2F%3C%2Fg%2C'%26lt%3B').replace(%2F%3E%2Fg%2C'%26gt%3B')%3Bsrt_output%2B%3Di%2B'%5Cn'%2BmakeTimeline(previous_start)%2B'%20--%3E%20'%2BmakeTimeline(start)%2B'%5Cn'%2Btemp%2B'%5Cn%5Cn'%3Bprevious_start%3D-1%3B%7Dif(end%3D%2Bcaption.getAttribute('dur'))end%3Dstart%2Bend%3Belse%7Bif(captions%5Bi%2B1%5D)%7Bprevious_start%3Dstart%3Bcontinue%3B%7D%7Dtemp%3Dcaption.textContent.replace(%2F%3C%2Fg%2C'%26lt%3B').replace(%2F%3E%2Fg%2C'%26gt%3B')%3Bsrt_output%2B%3Di%2B'%5Cn'%2BmakeTimeline(start)%2B'%20--%3E%20'%2BmakeTimeline(end)%2B'%5Cn'%2Btemp%2B'%5Cn%5Cn'%3B%7D%3Breturn%20srt_output%3B%7Dwindow.location.href%3D'data%3Atext%2Fplain%3Bbase64%2C'%2Bbtoa(returnSRT(document.documentElement))})();

Full Disclosure: I am the lead developer on the site I'm mentioning...

If you can get the URL to the .FLV file (just google 'how to get FLV URL youtube'), Upload by Transfer is what we call it. That feature gets released next week on our platform (see blog post for details). You provide the URL to the FLV, and the cloud service pulls it off and transcodes it.

Edit: Just tried this with the KeepVid suggestion in another answer. Just picked a popular YouTube video... http://play.nimbushd.com/view/lfsv

This is normally meant for production shops with automated workflows (HTTP/FTP servers) but FLV is supported and it's no different. And in the interest of neutrality I suppose you could also do this with encoding.com if you had a destination for it (an FTP server or something).

If you're not looking for a cloud service/hosted platform, then of course there are YouTube downloaders and you can just save the .FLV files off to your hard drive.