Can NotebookLM transcribe video?

NotebookLM does not transcribe video. For YouTube videos, it pulls the existing captions — it does not generate new transcriptions from the audio. For all other video formats (MP4, MOV, etc.), NotebookLM cannot process the file at all.

If you need to transcribe a video that is not on YouTube, use a dedicated transcription tool first: Whisper (free, open-source), Otter.ai, or Descript all work well. Export the transcript as a text or document file, then upload it to NotebookLM as a source. Once the transcript is inside your notebook, you can query, summarize, and generate study guides from it exactly like any other document.