Class Recordings — Vimeo Auto-Recorder

Automates recording Vimeo class videos on macOS using Chrome, AppleScript, the built-in Screenshot app, and BlackHole for audio capture.

How it works (per video)

1. Opens the Vimeo URL in a new Chrome tab with autoplay=1
2. Waits for the page to load, then clicks to focus the player
3. Plays, unmutes, and sets playback speed to 2×
4. Enables captions (C key)
5. Starts BlackHole audio capture (ffmpeg) and macOS screen recording simultaneously
6. Goes fullscreen and waits for the calculated recording duration
7. Stops both recordings, exits fullscreen, closes the tab
8. Merges the .mov screen capture + .aac audio into a final .mp4 via ffmpeg
9. Cleans up the temp .mov and .aac files

Requirements

• macOS with the built-in Screenshot app
• Google Chrome
• ffmpeg (brew install ffmpeg)
• BlackHole 2ch virtual audio driver
• Terminal granted Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions (System Settings → Privacy & Security)

Configuration

Edit the top of record_videos.py:

Variable	Default	Notes
OUTPUT_DIR	~/Jingjing's docs/DI/class_recordings	Where final .mp4 files are saved
LOG_FILE	~/Desktop/recording_log.txt	Timestamped log of every action
SPEED	2.0	Playback speed (duration is auto-detected and adjusted)
END_BUFFER	30	Extra seconds added after the video ends
SKIP_EXISTING	True	Skips a video if its .mp4 already exists
BLACKHOLE_AUDIO_INDEX	"0"	BlackHole device index from ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""

Running

python3 record_videos.py

Do not touch the mouse or keyboard while the script runs — AppleScript controls the UI directly.

Output

Files are saved as {chapter}_{label}.mp4, e.g. week5day2_GENAI_AI_194_FT.mp4.

Adding more videos

Add entries to the VIDEOS list in record_videos.py:

{"url": "https://vimeo.com/XXXXXXXXX/XXXXXXXXXX?fl=pl&fe=cm", "chapter": "weekXdayY", "label": "GENAI_AI_194_FT"},

Recorded videos

Chapter	Label
week3day1 – week3day5	GENAI_AI_194_FT
week4day1 – week4day3	GENAI_AI_194_FT
week5day2 – week5day4	GENAI_AI_194_FT