How to download subtitles/text tracks of a On Demand Vimeo video

vimeo_download_subtitles.md

Download subtitles/text tracks of an On-Demand Vimeo video

It works with on-demand videos that have the subtitles/captions included (CC symbol). You need to be registered in Vimeo in order to retrieve subtitles.

Steps

1. Open Chrome Developer Tools
2. Start playing the Vimeo video
3. Look for any request named segment-XX.m4s (where XX is a number)
4. Select the request and inspect the request payload, which is something in the form:

{"referrer":"https://vimeo.com/ondemand/followingseas","embed":false,"context":"Vimeo\\Controller\\OnDemandController.main","autoplay":0,"loop":0,"id":242740761,"vodId":128898,"vodSaleId":5911177,"sessionTime":22.604,"videoShape":0,"spatialPlayback":0,"userId":"xxxxxxxx","userAccountType":"basic","userIsMod":0,"ownerId":18500210,"ownerAccountType":"pro","privacy":"ptv","rating":6,"type":"html","videoFileId":"872163031","delivery":"dash","profileId":175,"quality":"sd","duration":5116.501,"seconds":536.483,"isLive":0,"playbackRate":1,"signature":"e8116054b8ca3f524be3091135c93cb5","session":"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx","time":1535639774,"expires":20468}

5. Copy the value of the field called id (i.e. "id":242740761)
6. Go to Vimeo API Playground: https://developer.vimeo.com/api/playground/videos/%7Bvideo_id%7D/texttracks (note that you need to be registered in Vimeo to do some API calls)
7. In the Playground form, replace {video_id} for your video ID (i.e. 242740761)
8. Check the checkbox that says Authenticate this call as John Doe
9. Push the Make call button
10. If everything works as expected, the successful HTTP request will be outputed. Something like the following:

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: application/vnd.vimeo.video.texttrack+json
Host: api.vimeo.com

{
    "total": 1,
    "data": [
        {
            "uri": "/videos/242740761/texttracks/5795943",
            "active": true,
            "type": "captions",
            "language": "en",
            "link": "https://captions.cloud.vimeo.com/captions/5795943.vtt?expires=1535648880&sig=357c4574e58e805af3b5ef2df4cd075bdc1c1ba8&download=FollowingSeas+CC.srt.vtt",
            "link_expires_time": 1535648880,
            "hls_link": "https://captions.cloud.vimeo.com/captions/5795943.vtt?expires=1535648880&sig=357c4574e58e805af3b5ef2df4cd075bdc1c1ba8&download=FollowingSeas+CC.srt.vtt&hls=1",
            "hls_link_expires_time": 1535648880,
            "name": "FollowingSeas CC.srt"
        }
    ]
}

11. Copy the value of the link attribute (i.e "https://captions.cloud.vimeo.com/captions/5795943.vtt?expires=1535648880&sig=357c4574e58e805af3b5ef2df4cd075bdc1c1ba8&download=FollowingSeas+CC.srt.vtt")
12. Paste it in your browser and the subtitles will start downloading :)

Using youtube-dl:

Step 1
Login to Vimeo and get the cookies.txt file using this Chrome plugin

Step 2
Use youtube-dl to download all the subtitles of the video. Example:

youtube-dl --all-subs "https://vimeo.com/ondemand/<video>" --cookies cookies.txt --skip-download
(--skip-download to download only the subtitles and not the video itself)

hey @sripriyesha - does this also download full length subs of a VOD (Video On Demand) I have NOT purchased, or in that case only the trailer subs? Or in other words, does this only work for VODs one has purchased?

@sripriyesha works perfectly, many thanks!

This worked for me as easy solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk6SmkKVZzA
Just copy subtitles fom dev tools -> network -> *.vtt file -> preview