Dailymotion Transcript Extractor

Extract transcripts from Dailymotion videos — news clips, regional broadcasts, entertainment shorts, and editorial content from publishers worldwide. Paste a Dailymotion URL and get back timestamped text for monitoring, translation, or archiving.

Works with any public Dailymotion video. No login required.

What it does

1. You provide a Dailymotion video URL (full or short-link format).
2. The actor extracts the spoken content with precise timestamps.
3. You get back structured text in JSON, plain text, SRT, or WebVTT — ready for media monitoring, translation workflows, or archival pipelines.

Dailymotion is a major video platform for European publishers and international news organizations. This actor makes that content pipeline machine-readable without manual effort.

Key features

• News & media monitoring — extract spoken content from broadcaster clips, editorial videos, and press-conference recordings automatically.
• Short-link support — works with both dailymotion.com/video/<id> and the condensed dai.ly/<id> short-link format.
• Timestamped segments — every text segment includes start and end times, enabling subtitle sync and timeline search.
• 4 output formats — JSON with timestamps, plain text, SRT, or WebVTT to fit downstream tools.
• Multi-language — uses platform-provided captions where available; speech-to-text fallback covers 14 languages including French, German, Arabic, and Russian — key for European and MENA content.
• No login required.

Supported languages

When Dailymotion provides caption tracks, the actor extracts them in whatever language they were authored. When captions are absent, speech-to-text fallback supports:

Code	Language
en	English
es	Spanish
fr	French
de	German
pt	Portuguese
it	Italian
nl	Dutch
ja	Japanese
ko	Korean
zh	Chinese
ar	Arabic
ru	Russian
tr	Turkish
hi	Hindi

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
url	string	(required)	Dailymotion video URL
language	string	"en"	Preferred language (ISO 639-1)
format	string	"json"	"json", "text", "srt", or "vtt"

Supported URLs

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9abcde
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9abcde_example-video-title
https://dai.ly/x9abcde

Output example

When format is json, each dataset row looks like this:

{
    "url": "https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9abcde",
    "platform": "dailymotion",
    "language": "fr",
    "duration_sec": 214,
    "segments": [
        { "start": 0.0, "end": 4.8, "text": "Le gouvernement a annoncé de nouvelles mesures économiques ce matin." },
        { "start": 4.8, "end": 9.3, "text": "Ces décisions impacteront les entreprises de taille moyenne dès le mois prochain." }
    ],
    "full_text": "Le gouvernement a annoncé de nouvelles mesures économiques ce matin. Ces décisions impacteront les entreprises de taille moyenne dès le mois prochain."
}

When format is text, srt, or vtt, the formatted transcript is written to the actor's key-value store under the OUTPUT key.

When extraction fails, the dataset row contains a clear error:

{
    "error": "NOT_FOUND",
    "message": "The video is private, removed, or has no extractable transcript."
}

Error codes

Code	Meaning
INVALID_FORMAT	format was not one of json/text/srt/vtt
BAD_REQUEST	The URL was malformed or rejected by the transcript operation
UNSUPPORTED_PLATFORM	No transcript operation serves this URL's platform
UNAUTHORIZED	The actor's ScriptBase key is missing, invalid, or revoked
INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS	The ScriptBase account behind this actor is out of credits
NOT_FOUND	The video is private, removed, or has no extractable transcript
UPSTREAM_FAILED	Every transcript source failed -- retry shortly
RATE_LIMITED	Too many requests -- retry after a short delay
TIMEOUT	Extraction took longer than the actor's poll budget
INTERNAL_ERROR	Unexpected error during extraction

Use cases

• Media monitoring — track what broadcasters and publishers are saying about a topic. Pull transcripts from news clips and feed them into keyword alert or sentiment pipelines.
• Regional & European content — Dailymotion hosts significant French, German, Italian, and Arabic-language media. Extract and analyze content that doesn't appear on YouTube or other English-dominated platforms.
• Translation workflows — get clean source text from a Dailymotion video and pass it to a translation API or human translator to produce multilingual subtitle tracks.
• Press-conference & interview archiving — convert official video statements into searchable text records for research, journalism, or compliance purposes.
• Educational content repurposing — many instructional and documentary videos live on Dailymotion. Convert them into written notes, study guides, or blog summaries.
• SEO & content strategy — identify trending topics and phrases in editorial video content to inform publishing decisions.

Integrations

Use this actor through the Apify API or wire it into your automation stack:

• Python — apify_client.actor("your-actor-id").call(run_input={"url": "https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9abcde", "language": "fr"})
• JavaScript — await client.actor("your-actor-id").call({url: "https://dai.ly/x9abcde"})
• Zapier / Make / n8n — build a monitoring flow that ingests a daily list of Dailymotion URLs and outputs transcripts to a spreadsheet or database.
• Webhooks — push the completed transcript payload to your content management system or translation service the moment extraction finishes.

FAQ

Do I need a Dailymotion account to use this? No. The actor works with any publicly accessible video without credentials or session cookies.

Does it support the dai.ly short-link format? Yes. Both the full dailymotion.com/video/<id> form and the dai.ly/<id> short links are supported.

What if the video is in French or German? Set the language field to "fr" or "de". If the video has embedded captions in that language the actor uses them; otherwise it applies speech-to-text in the target language.

Can I extract transcripts from a whole Dailymotion channel? Use the Apify API to loop over a list of video URLs. Pair this actor with a Dailymotion channel scraper to automate the full pipeline.

What about geo-restricted content? Content that is blocked in the actor's execution region cannot be extracted.

What does it cost? Pricing is per transcribed minute (1 minute = 1 charge unit, minimum 1), so you pay only for the audio actually processed — and failed extractions cost nothing. The exact per-minute price is shown on this actor's Apify Store page.