How to read a lecture instead of watching it

What you end up with

StreamSnag calls it a reading edition. It is one page saved next to the video: a contents list, the lecture cut into headed parts, each part into paragraphs, and beside every paragraph the minute it was said. Click a minute and the video opens there. You can open a sample reading edition to see one.

It is not a summary. It keeps what was taught: the lecturer's own words, examples and qualifications. Nothing is reworded. Hesitation sounds and doubled words are removed by rule, and that is all.

Three things are added without any AI, and without changing a word:

• Headings. From the slides when there are some. Without slides, a part is headed by its own most distinctive terms, such as “Wall stress”, when some stand out.
• The lecturer's emphasis. A sentence such as “If you remember one thing from today, remember that distinction” is marked, with “Lecturer's emphasis” beside it.
• Spoken lists. A “first… second… third…” is set out as a numbered list.

See the same sample made without its slides, and a statistics lecture with five spoken lists.

What you need

• StreamSnag Pro. Your first lecture is free, with no card.
• The lecture saved on your computer.
• Its words: captions if it has them, or a transcript made on your computer if it does not. See how to transcribe a lecture.

The steps

1. Save the lecture

   Open the lecture page, press play, click the StreamSnag icon and press Download. The popup then says where the file went.

2. Get the words

   If the lecture has captions, they are its words, and there is nothing to do. If the popup says “No captions here”, press Transcribe on this computer. That needs the helper program and a one-time download.

3. Press Read the lecture

   The button is on a card headed Reading edition: “The lecture as an article you can read instead of watching. It opens as soon as it is made.” Without AI that takes a few seconds. The page opens in a tab of its own, and the popup says how long it is, for example “4 sections, about 14 minutes to read”.

4. Read

   The contents are on the left with the minute each part starts, and a line under them says how much reading is left. To come back later, the popup keeps a button for the saved page.

Reading it well

• Search it. Your browser's find box works on the whole lecture at once.
• Change the text or print it. Buttons at the top change the size, switch to a dark page and print.
• Take it with you. It is a single file that works offline, so it can be copied to a phone or a tablet. A Markdown copy is saved beside it.
• Go back to the lecturer. A paragraph's minute takes you to that moment. With a study page next to it, the minute opens there, with the slide that was up.

What can go wrong

• Wrong words. The page says what the captions or the transcript say, mistakes included. In our sample the captions wrote “ionotropic” for inotropic. The optional AI tidy corrects misheard terms against the slides.
• Plain headings. Without slides, a part where no term stands out is headed by number and minute, such as “Part 3 · 12:40”. That is common when the lecturer is telling a story. In our sample made without slides, two of the four parts got a heading from their terms and two did not.
• No emphasis marks or lists. Those are found in English lectures whose captions have punctuation.
• Long paragraphs with no full stops. Some automatic captions have no punctuation. Paragraphs are then cut at pauses, and no sentence ends are invented.
• Nothing to read. If the captions hold no words, it says so and makes nothing.

Questions