mathiasandClaude Opus 4.8
92da25d01e
Vimeo texttracks API is owner-only (worse than YouTube, no public timedtext) → defer. Whisper viable as a no-caption fallback; berget/whisper-large-v3 already on the gateway (cloud), local options on iguana/koala carry setup+GPU-contention cost (ADR-007). Both investigated inline (session sub-agents are network-sandboxed). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
53 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
53 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
# Vimeo — captions/transcripts feasibility for tapir (research, 2026-06-02)
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Researched by the Conductor (sub-agents were network-sandboxed). Mapped to tapir's
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`VideoSource` port (`ListSubscriptions`, `NewVideos`, `FetchTranscript`).
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## Verdict: SAME owner-only wall as YouTube, and WORSE fallback options.
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### Q3 (the gating question) — text tracks for videos you DON'T own
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- **Official API is owner-only.** Vimeo Help Center: *"You must use a personal token
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generated as the account owner of the video in order to access your video's transcripts
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via API."* So `GET /videos/{id}/texttracks` returns tracks only for videos the
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authenticated account owns — identical to YouTube `captions.download`.
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Source: https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/17480150130833
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- The text-track `link` points to `captions.cloud.vimeo.com/....vtt?token=...` — a
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**token-gated** URL, not a clean public file.
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Source: https://developer.vimeo.com/api/reference/response/text-track
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- The API is also widely reported flaky (vimeo/openapi#16 "Texttracks API doesn't work as
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advertised"). Source: https://github.com/vimeo/openapi/issues/16
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### Unofficial fallback — weaker than YouTube's timedtext
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- Captions are loadable via the embed player, yielding `[n].vtt?token=...` requests, and
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yt-dlp can pull Vimeo subs with cookies. But every documented method needs a
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**registered/logged-in viewer** ("you need to be registered in Vimeo to retrieve
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subtitles"). There is **no clean unauthenticated public timedtext equivalent** like
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YouTube's `captionTracks[].baseUrl`.
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Sources: https://gist.github.com/pjmartorell/384aa1d019f919af6b84894038bf29aa ,
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https://github.com/vimeo/openapi/blob/master/api.yaml
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- **Needs live verification:** whether `player.vimeo.com/video/{id}/config` returns a
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`text_tracks[]` with usable token'd URLs for arbitrary PUBLIC videos without owner auth.
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Likely partially works for public/embeddable videos but is undocumented and brittle.
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### Subscriptions / new videos (the easy part)
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- "Following" exists: `/me/following` (users), plus channels/groups feeds; per-user video
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lists via `/users/{id}/videos` sortable by date. Maps to `ListSubscriptions`/`NewVideos`.
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Source: https://developer.vimeo.com/api/reference
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- Auth: OAuth2; many endpoints/scopes and higher rate limits require **app review**, and
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some metadata is gated behind paid plans. (Tier/plan gating: needs-verification.)
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## Feasibility for tapir
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- A Vimeo adapter could do subscriptions + new-video detection fine.
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- **Transcripts are the blocker, same as YouTube but harder**: official path owner-only,
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unofficial path requires a logged-in viewer (cookie/token), no public timedtext.
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- Realistic Stage-0 stance: **defer Vimeo.** YouTube via the timedtext path (ADR-010)
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covers the maintainer's actual subscriptions; Vimeo adds a second brittle, auth-gated
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caption path for a smaller share of content. If pursued: the cookie'd player-config
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method or yt-dlp-with-cookies, behind the same "ToS-grey, opt-in" framing — a future ADR.
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- This is consistent with the port design: Vimeo is just another adapter; nothing in the
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engine changes when/if it's added.
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**Biggest risk:** there is no public, unauthenticated caption path on Vimeo — any
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third-party transcript fetch needs a logged-in session/cookie, which is more fragile and
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more ToS-exposed than YouTube timedtext.
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