catalogue / tools / Audio & video / Subtitle Extract API

Subtitle Extract API

Extracts a text subtitle track from a media container (MKV, MP4, WebM) as SubRip or WebVTT.

Endpoint
POST /v1/subtitle-extract
Price
$0.003 per call
Family
Audio & video

01When to use it

  • Demuxing a caption stream out of a container needs ffmpeg AND a hardened fetch: an agent that pulls the URL itself walks past every SSRF control, and carrying an ffmpeg per call is not something an agent does inline.
  • Your source is AVI, MKV, MP4 or Ogg and you need SRT or WebVTT.

When not to use it

  • The input is over 200 MB (209,715,200 bytes): subtitle-extract answers too_large (413).
  • The destination needs more than 60 s to answer: the call ends with upstream_timeout (424).
  • The destination is on a private or local network: the network guard refuses it with blocked_target (403).

02Parameters

FieldTypeRequiredDescription
urlstringyesAbsolute http(s) URL of a media container that can carry subtitles (MKV/WebM, MP4/MOV, AVI or Ogg), at most 2048 characters.
streamintegernoZero-based index counted among the subtitle streams only (0 to 63, default 0); a missing stream fails with no_subtitle_stream. Default: 0.
tostringnoFormat of the returned captions, srt (default) or vtt, written by ffmpeg. One of: "srt", "vtt". Default: "srt".

03Limits

LimitValue
Largest source file200 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
Timeout60 s
Source formatsAVI, MKV, MP4, Ogg
Output formatsSRT, WebVTT

04Example

The published example of subtitle-extract, verbatim: the request body and the response it returns.

Request
POST /v1/subtitle-extract
content-type: application/json
payment-signature: <base64 x402 payload>

{
  "url": "https://grist.tools/samples/av/subtitle-movie.mkv",
  "stream": 0,
  "to": "srt"
}
Response
200 OK
payment-response: <base64 settlement receipt>

{
  "source_url": "https://grist.tools/samples/av/subtitle-movie.mkv",
  "bytes": 1486,
  "container": "matroska",
  "stream_index": 0,
  "format": "srt",
  "cue_count": 2,
  "subtitle": "1\n00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:02,000\nThe kettle starts to hum.\n\n2\n00:00:02,500 --> 00:00:04,000\nSteam rises from the spout.\n\n"
}

Sample file: av/subtitle-movie.mkv. Four-second Matroska file with a 64x36 flat green video stream and one English SubRip subtitle stream of two cues, built with ffmpeg in bit-exact mode.

In the sample itself, the EBML header names DocType matroska, version 4, readable by a version 2 parser; Segment Info sets a timestamp scale of 1,000,000 ns and a duration of 4,000 ticks, 4 s, with Lavf as the muxing application; the Tracks element lists codec IDs V_MS/VFW/FOURCC (video, language und) and S_TEXT/UTF8 (subtitle, language eng). The returned text starts with cue number 1. Its 2 timing lines are 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:02,000 and 00:00:02,500 --> 00:00:04,000, giving hours, minutes and seconds, and a comma before the milliseconds. Every cue has a number line above its timing, 1 and 2.

Response fieldTypeIn the example
source_urlstring"https://grist.tools/samples/av/subtitle-movie.mkv"
bytesnumber1486
containerstring"matroska"
stream_indexnumber0
formatstring"srt"
cue_countnumber2
subtitlestring"1 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:02,000 The kettle starts to hum. 2 00:00:02,500 --> 00:00:04,000 Steam rises from the spout. "

05Call it from code

JavaScript
// subtitle-extract: $0.003 per call, paid in USD Coin on eip155:8453 via x402
// Install: npm install @x402/fetch@2 @x402/evm@2 viem@2
// Save as client.mjs (ES module, Node 18+), export EVM_PRIVATE_KEY with the paying wallet's key in your shell, then run: node client.mjs
// The wrapper reads the 402 (payment-required), signs and retries with payment-signature.
import { wrapFetchWithPayment, x402Client, decodePaymentResponseHeader } from '@x402/fetch'
import { ExactEvmScheme } from '@x402/evm/exact/client'
import { privateKeyToAccount } from 'viem/accounts'

const account = privateKeyToAccount(process.env.EVM_PRIVATE_KEY)
const client = new x402Client().register('eip155:8453', new ExactEvmScheme(account))
const fetchWithPayment = wrapFetchWithPayment(fetch, client)

const body = {
  "url": "https://grist.tools/samples/av/subtitle-movie.mkv",
  "stream": 0,
  "to": "srt"
}

const res = await fetchWithPayment('https://grist.tools/v1/subtitle-extract', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'content-type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify(body),
})
console.log(res.status, await res.json())
const settle = res.headers.get('payment-response')
if (settle) console.log(decodePaymentResponseHeader(settle).transaction)
Python
# subtitle-extract: $0.003 per call, paid in USD Coin on eip155:8453 via x402
# Install: pip install "x402[requests,evm]>=2.24,<3"
# The session reads the 402 (payment-required), signs and retries with payment-signature.
import os
from eth_account import Account
from x402 import x402ClientSync
from x402.http import decode_payment_response_header
from x402.http.clients.requests import x402_requests
from x402.mechanisms.evm.exact import register_exact_evm_client
from x402.mechanisms.evm.signers import EthAccountSigner

account = Account.from_key(os.environ["EVM_PRIVATE_KEY"])
client = x402ClientSync()
register_exact_evm_client(client, EthAccountSigner(account), networks="eip155:8453")
session = x402_requests(client)

payload = {
    "url": "https://grist.tools/samples/av/subtitle-movie.mkv",
    "stream": 0,
    "to": "srt"
}

res = session.post("https://grist.tools/v1/subtitle-extract", json=payload)
print(res.status_code, res.json())
settle = res.headers.get("payment-response")
if settle:
    print(decode_payment_response_header(settle).transaction)
curl
# subtitle-extract: $0.003 per call, paid in USD Coin on eip155:8453 via x402
# 1. Unpaid call: HTTP 402, the requirements in the payment-required header (base64 JSON) and in the body.
curl -i -X POST 'https://grist.tools/v1/subtitle-extract' -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"url":"https://grist.tools/samples/av/subtitle-movie.mkv","stream":0,"to":"srt"}'

# 2. Same call with the signed payment (an EIP-3009 authorization, EIP-712 signed: it cannot be
#    typed by hand). x-payment is accepted as the v1 alternative. HTTP 200 carries payment-response.
curl -i -X POST 'https://grist.tools/v1/subtitle-extract' -H 'content-type: application/json' -H 'payment-signature: <base64 x402 payload>' -d '{"url":"https://grist.tools/samples/av/subtitle-movie.mkv","stream":0,"to":"srt"}'

06Errors

CodeHTTPFor this service
invalid_input400The body does not match the schema; its fields are url, stream and to.
blocked_target403
unreachable_target424
upstream_timeout424
unsupported_content_type415The source is not a type subtitle-extract reads; it reads AVI, MKV, MP4 and Ogg.
too_large413
unprocessable422
internal500

Input that is rejected before the tool runs (malformed JSON, schema mismatch, body over the size limit) is never charged.

When each code is raised, and what it means for payment: /docs/subtitle-extract.

07Conversions

ConversionRecorded sampleSource sizeOutput size
AVI to SRTnone recorded
AVI to WebVTTnone recorded
MKV to SRTav/pair-clip.mkv10.3 KB117 bytes
MKV to WebVTTav/pair-clip.mkv10.3 KB108 bytes
MP4 to SRTav/pair-clip.mp411 KB117 bytes
MP4 to WebVTTav/pair-clip.mp411 KB108 bytes
Ogg to SRTav/pair-clip.ogg12.3 KB117 bytes
Ogg to WebVTTav/pair-clip.ogg12.3 KB108 bytes

08Questions

How much does a subtitle-extract call cost?
$0.003 per call, paid in USDC on Base via x402, with no account and no API key.
What does subtitle-extract return?
A JSON object with 7 top-level fields: source_url, bytes, container, stream_index, format, cue_count and subtitle. The example on this page is a real call over av/subtitle-movie.mkv.
What happens when a subtitle-extract call fails?
The tool answers with a typed JSON error from the errors table. Payment is settled only after the tool has produced its result; a call that fails inside the tool is never settled. A 503 upstream_unavailable can follow a settled call; the x402 payments guide covers it, 429, 402 and an uncertain 500.

09Related