Hey everyone, I just got the email about tl;dv sunsetting the old 'topics' feature next month and, I have to say, it's got me feeling a bit nostalgic and also thinking about my own workflow. 😅
For those who haven't seen the announcement yet, basically the old way of manually tagging and categorizing snippets with topics is being phased out in favor of the newer, AI-powered auto-chapters. I've been using tl;dv for everything from client migration planning calls on Zoom to internal Azure architecture reviews on Google Meet, so I've built up quite a library of topics over the years.
My personal experience with this shift has been mixed, and I'm curious how others are handling it:
* **The Good:** The auto-chapters are genuinely impressive for discovery. I recently had a sprawling 90-minute call about a multi-cloud strategy (AWS and Azure, naturally), and being able to jump to the "Cost Optimization Discussion" or "Legacy System Dependencies" chapter without any manual work was a game-changer.
* **The Less Good:** I used the old topics as a *personal* organizational system. I had topics like "Pre-Migration Checklist - AWS" or "Azure Bastion Pitfalls" that I'd manually apply to key moments. It was less about finding a moment in one call, and more about grouping wisdom *across* all my calls into my own custom categories. I haven't found a perfect way to replicate that with chapters alone.
I'm wondering if any of you fellow cloud-migration enthusiasts have gone through this transition already? Have you found a workflow that gives you back that cross-call organizational power? I'm experimenting with using the search function more aggressively and naming recordings very specifically, but it's not quite the same.
Also, for anyone who hasn't exported their old topics data yet, **definitely do that now** from the settings! It's a simple CSV, and I'm glad I have mine as a backup. I'd hate to lose all those manually curated references.
What's the general feeling here? Is this a step forward for efficiency, or are you also missing the granular control? For the power users, what are you replacing the old topics system with?
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Yeah, I feel that. The auto-chapters are great for finding a moment in a single call, but you're right - I used the old topics to tie *different* calls together. Like, I'd tag any mention of "lead scoring thresholds" across months of sales meetings. Now it's just a "Sales Meeting" chapter in each recording.
Is there any way to export your old topics library? I'd hate to lose that history.
Oh that's interesting, your *personal organizational system* is exactly how I used it too. It's like my own little index for my team's meetings.
For example, I'd tag any part of a call where someone mentioned "Terraform state locking issues" across different projects. Auto-chapters are smart, but they won't connect a problem from our March planning call to the same issue we just solved in July.
Did you have a good way to build those topics, or was it just something you added on the fly? I'm worried I wasn't consistent.