Workflow · Students
Turn every lecture into studiable notes
A repeatable pattern for studying recorded lectures: transcribe, capture slides, brief, and export to Anki for spaced repetition.
1
Import the lecture
Drop the .mp4 in for full on-device transcription, or paste a YouTube URL. For YouTube, VidNotes tries to fetch public captions automatically — for videos without them, the empty-state panel offers three options (download + import, paste a transcript, or use a third-party API). See the YouTube workflow guide for details.
2
Transcribe (if needed)
Click Transcript → Generate. Whisper runs locally on your Mac. Takes roughly 1 minute per 10 minutes of lecture on Apple Silicon.
3
Capture slides & formulas
As you watch, press the capture button to grab important frames. VidNotes runs OCR + math-to-LaTeX automatically on each capture.
Use Visual Timeline (auto-detects slide changes) for a one-click capture of every unique slide.
4
Generate the brief
Click Brief → Generate. You’ll get an overview, key claims with timestamps, entities (people / books / concepts), flashcards, and a draft note. Every claim links back to the moment it was said.
5
Export to Anki
Open the brief’s Flashcards section → Export .apkg. Drop the file into Anki. Your cards are ready for spaced repetition.
Exam prep hack: import a whole course as a playlist. Open the knowledge graph — entities appearing across many lectures are likely exam topics. Study those first.