Editing Subtitles with Aegisub

Aegisub Subtitle Editor Workflow

You start with a transcript of the audio. Always. If you do not have a transcript of the audio, read this quick article on how to get a transcript, and then come back and join the party.

BASIC Aegisub Workflow

Begin with your transcript saved in plain text file (.txt), or in subtitle file (.srt) format:

1. 1. Open Aegisub.
  2. With the Aegisub editor open, select “File\Open Subtitle” to import a subtitle file or plain text file.
  3. Navigate to the location your transcript is saved, select the file and click “Open”.
  4. The Text Import Options window prompts you for characters to separate different actors, and a character to denote comments in the subtitle file (comments do not appear onscreen). Enter characters if your transcript is formatted with them, otherwise ignore.
  5. Click “OK” and the file loads.
  6. The text grid populates with the contents of your subtitle/text file.
  7. Select the first row, and that subtitle will appear in the Subtitle Edit window.
  8. Edit the subtitle as appropriate for grammar and line length.
  9. Adjust the timing for the subtitle by moving the blue and red lines within the Audio editing window. Blue is the beginning, red is the ending. Other subtitles are represented with gray lines.
  10. Press ENTER when the subtitle is formatted and the timing is set. Aegisub will register the timing for your subtitle and move to the next subtitle line in the Text Grid.

Repeat this process until all of the subtitles have been formatted and properly timed to appear on screen.

That’s the essential workflow, continue reading to learn about optimizing your workflow, setting preferences, and how to format your subtitles so they are easier to read and understand.

Set Your Aegisub Options

Goto “View\Options…” and select the “Interface” option to set the preferences for how many characters per line, characters per second warning threshold, and characters per second error threshold.

I set my preferences to 42 characters per line, 15 characters per second warning threshold, and 30 characters per second error threshold.

Click “Apply” when you are finished.

Colors

From the Options menu, click the “Colors” option under “Interface” and adjust the different colors used within the Aegisub interface.

When finished adjusting your preferences, click “Apply” to activate your settings.

Click “OK” to close the Options panel.

Video Window

Go to the “Video” menu to open the video you are subtitling.

You can enlarge or reduce the size of the video window by hovering the mouse over the video and using the mouse scroll wheel.

There are multiple playback modes. Playback can be limited to the current subtitle line, or playback can proceed through the remainder of the video from the current subtitle line forward.

Audio Window

The Audio window displays the waveform for the audio. The area of the waveform between the red and the blue lines is the audio content corresponding to the current line of subtitles.

You can easily adjust the timing of each subtitle line by dragging the start or end lines within the audio window.

Editing Audio Timing

Within the Audio Window:

1. 1. Move the BLUE line to the beginning of your subtitle audio.
  2. Move the RED line to the end of your subtitle audio.
  3. Press SPACEBAR to play the audio for the current subtitle.
  4. Ensure the display time for the current subtitle corresponds with the selected audio.
  5. Press ENTER when you are satisfied with the timing.

Text Editing Window

Immediately beneath the Audio Window is the Text Editing window.

When you select a line of subtitles in the Text Grid, that subtitle will be displayed in the Text Editing window for editing.

Right click within the Text Editing window to access options for adjusting line length and splitting subtitles.

Use NUMPAD 5 to play the audio currently associated with the subtitle being edited.

Editing the Captions

Edit the subtitles according to the rules for editing captions, as described in the “Captioning Key” resource from the Described Media and Caption Program (DCMP).

Use the Captioning Key for full details of how to format different types of information, as well as how to style your captions for maximum readability.

Captioning Key: https://dcmp.org/learn/captioningkey

Formatting Language

There are many considerations for formatting subtitles to enhance their readability and understandability. Check out the Captioning Key for a complete explanation of how to format different types of information. In general, the following guidelines should always be followed:

- - Never split a prepositional phrase when breaking a line of subtitles.
  - Do not split a descriptor from the object it is describing when you break a line of subtitles.
  - Do not mix numerals with numbers spelled out in words. Choose either numerals or words and maintain consistency.
  - Do not separate a person’s title from their name when breaking a subtitle into two lines.
  - Include sound effects in brackets, such as: [car tires screeching],
    or [gun firing] BANG! BANG!…
  - Audio occurring offscreen should be italicized.

Maximum Line Length

It is important to format your subtitles so they do not form excessively long lines of text.

It can be difficult to read long lines of text and also pay attention to the video that is being shown. Best results are achieved when subtitles are around 42 characters per line. It is OK to exceed this by a few characters, but try not to go over 50 characters per subtitle line.

The Text Grid displays each line of subtitles with a column that displays the Characters Per Second (CPS). This column turns red when the characters per second meets or exceeds the levels you set in the Interface options, making it easy to see at a glance where you need to make adjustments to line length.

Using the Characters Per Second column, you can quickly identify any lines of subtitles that are too long for the amount of time they are being displayed. The Characters Per Second warning color and the characters per second error color can be set in the Options pane under “Interface\Colors”.

Displaying Two Lines of Subtitles

If you want to display two lines of subtitles on the screen, you can manually split the subtitle line into two lines by pressing SHIFT + ENTER.

Pressing SHIFT+ENTER will place a new line code(\N) in your subtitle file, indicating where the line breaks. The new line code will not be displayed on screen with the rest of the subtitle.

If you break a line of subtitles using the new line code (\N), the Characters Per Second displayed will reflect whichever subtitle line is the longest.

Splitting Long Lines of Subtitles

If you want to break a long line of subtitles into two separate lines of subtitles, use the Editing Window.

Place your cursor within the subtitle where you want the second line of subtitles to start, and click the right mouse button.

Choose “Split at cursor (estimate times)”, and the text spanning from your cursor to the end of the subtitle will be moved to a new subtitle line.

Conclusion

Follow the workflow at the beginning of this article until each line of subtitles has been formatted and optimized.

Save your .srt file, and use it with your video when you share it online or use the video in the classroom.

You can also download this job aid for the Aegisub Workflow for editing subtitles.

November 25, 2024November 25, 2024

How to Create a Transcript

How to Get a Transcript

There are many ways to get a transcript of your video.

As an employee, my number one preferred solution is to contract with a professional to do my captioning.

However, as an independent business owner, I do not want to spend the money for captioning when I can do it myself and spend that money on something else. In fact, I’m even happy to take on your captioning chores for a small fee if you’re seeking help.

So I understand that for many small businesses the cost of paying someone else to caption your videos is a non-starter. There is a reason so many videos on YouTube have the “auto-craptions” instead of polished and helpful captions.

But I’m here to tell you there’s a better way than throwing the fate of your subtitles to the whims of YouTube.

As a wizened old nerd who has been playing with video since the days of VHS and video toasters, I can appreciate the amazing progress that has been made in the area of captioning support. There are many ways to get captions, including the aforementioned “auto-craptions” which are better than nothing, most of the time.

Even so, the work must continue, as the quality and accuracy of “auto-craptions” still leaves something to be desired.

Fortunately, captioning is not so much difficult, as it is a time-consuming task. However, one of the traditional bottle-necks in the process, transcribing audio, is being resolved by robots.

Path of Least Resistance

With the explosion of AI, it is no wonder that we have many options for transcribing audio. Many offer a “free” tier, but as is always the case, when a web-based service is “free” – you are the product being exploited – as in, your data.

Be aware of the fact that what you feed into any of these AI systems will likely be used to feed their training algorithm, and be used for who knows what. So choose wisely.

Personally, I like Otter.ai because I first encountered them in the Education technology space many years ago, long before AI became a “thing”. They do a remarkably good job of recognizing what is being said.

If you do not have a subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud, then Otter.ai would be my next choice for automated transcript creation.

Premiere Pro

Even with the ease of Otter.ai, I can’t deny the immediate ease of using Premiere Pro’s new transcription capability.

Adobe has some impressive speech recognition capability, and since I have already sold my soul in order to have the Creative Cloud subscription, I can rationalize the feeding of the Adobe AI.

Adobe, my toxic valentine, co-dependency is the mask for your vile exploitation and my despicable lust for your bright shiny broken things…

Anyway – please excuse my venting, and let’s get back to the regularly scheduled programming…

I find that getting a transcript from Premiere Pro is a simple and powerful way to begin the captioning process.

Premiere Pro Workflow

Getting a transcript in Premiere Pro starts at project creation when you import your source clips. Set the ingest settings to automatically transcribe your clips at project creation, and Premiere Pro will create transcripts of all audio and video clips.

So far, it does a better job than YouTube. YouTube has flat-out refused to process several recent videos, I suspect due to the length of the videos.

After Premiere Pro finishes processing your clips, you can open the Transcription window to edit the results.

You can easily create captions/subtitles with your transcripts within Premiere Pro, and you can export the subtitles as an .srt file for uploading to YouTube or editing in Aegisub (see below).

Aegisub Subtitle Editor

If you are working on a long video, you will probably find the process of editing your subtitles to be a lot more enjoyable and efficient when working in Aegisub, the free subtitle editor.

I don’t receive any financial compensation for recommending Aegisub, I just like the program enough to recommend it.

Check out my tutorial on using Aegisub to take your audio information from transcript to powerful and perfect captions.

August 22, 2020August 22, 2020

Captioning and Community – Amara.org

Amara.org

There are many tools related to captioning digital media, and Amara is an amazing example of captioning technology that inspires and supports a passionate community of inclusive media enthusiasts.

What is Amara?

Amara is both a captioning tool and a captioning service, and before we go any further, let me just say I am not getting paid or compensated in any way for this post.

Amara enables you to caption web-based video, which makes Amara the solution when you are wanting to use someone else’s uncaptioned video in your class. With Amara, you can caption web-based video for the good of the entire Internet community.

Speaking of community, if you’re lucky, that community might help you caption the videos you want to use – for free!

Amara as a Captioning Tool

Amara.org is the website where you can create captions/subtitles for web-based video, for free. Using their award-winning captioning tools, you can caption the video completely within your browser. No installation required.

When you are finished, your captioning work will become part of the ever-growing library of captioned media hosted by Amara.org.

You’re literally making the Internet more accessible when you do this.

If you’re fortunate enough to work for a company that pays for Amara’s premium tools, then you get the benefit of collaboration tools and enhanced support as well. I hear it’s pretty nice…

Amara as Captioning Service

Of course, my first rule for captioning is “If you can pay someone else to do it, then pay someone else to do it!” – Amara is also happy to help you with your captioning needs, for a fee.

Captioned Video Repository

Amara has been used by a lot of people to caption a lot of videos, meaning there are a lot of captioned videos available through Amara.org.

It is worth searching on some keywords related to your subject matter to see if some other educator might have captioned an excellent instructional video that might benefit your students – and save you some time in the process!

Volunteering – Captioning as a Public Service

Do you believe in community service? Captioning videos through Amara certainly counts as a community service, albeit for our global community of people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

At Amara, the community works on videos that need to be captioned for other people too. If you need videos captioned for your class, and you are willing to wait for the volunteers to get to your request, then you can add the video to a list of videos that volunteers will caption – eventually.

A huge number of educators make use of Amara.org, so you will also be supporting your own community of educators when you use Amara.org, whether you do the captioning or you ask volunteers to do it for you.

Extra Credit, Anyone?

Do you have the kind of class where you can award extra credit for public service? Amara.org is a great vehicle for tapping into students’ desire to help others and improve their own grade at the same time.

Even if you don’t have enough videos to keep your students busy, they can volunteer to caption other people’s videos through Amara.org.

Award-Winning Technology

Amara.org provides some of the most intuitive and easy to use captioning tools available. You will see why they have won so many awards around the world for their design and capability.

Using only three keystrokes, you can caption your web-based video with no hassle.

Amara Workflow

Before we begin, remember that your video must be live and available on the Internet to use Amara.org to caption it.

To begin the process, click on the “Amara Public Workspace” tab at the top of the screen, and click the “Add Video” button when it appears.

Amara start screed with Add Videos button highlighted. — Click Add videos button to begin…

You will be prompted to enter the video URL, and specify the language of the video.

You will also need to specify your own language for your user profile within Amara. Amara allows you to specify 6 languages of proficiency, if you are so talented.

With your profile language(s) specified, you will be able to click the “Add/Edit Subtitles” button.

There are three basic steps to captioning a video with Amara:

Transcribe the dialogue and auditory information.
Synchronize the presentation of the captions with the sonic presentation.
Review the final product.

The Amara workflow of three steps: 1. Type what you hear, 2. Sync timing, 3. Review and complete. — The Amara captioning workflow is really that easy.

That’s it!

Amara will make sure you have all the help and support you need along the way.

Amara support overlay explaining the interface for a first-time user.

Work through the video, using TAB to play/stop the video, and the UP and DOWN arrows to indicate the Start and Stop times for each line of captioning.

The final step of the workflow: review your captions and timing. — The final step.

When you finish the captioning process, Amara.org will include the captioned video as part of the public repository, and you can link to it or embed it in a page within your LMS.

Mission accomplished, the successful completion notification from Amara. — Mission complete!

For Longer Jobs

If you are working on a long video, or if you get interrupted, there is a “Save Draft” button that will maintain your progress for when you are able to login again and resume your editing.

Video with incomplete subtitles. — This video has incomplete subtitles.

You can come back at any time and finish your video captioning.

Now you know about the world’s largest community of caption/subtitle enthusiasts, and another option for dealing with inaccessible videos you find on the Internet.

I hope this helps, and thanks for reading!

August 21, 2020August 21, 2020

Viewing Your Captioned Videos

Woman sits in front of a television with nothing but static showing on the screen. — Photo by Ali Pazani on Unsplash

If you just jumped in, we’ve been covering a workflow for captioning digital video.

We’ve talked about the formatting and stylistic concerns for caption files, as well as transcribing and assigning time codes for each line of captioning in a caption file.

Today I will tell you about a solution for viewing the captions and the video together in a single file.

Softsubs

The technology behind our solution is called Softsubbing. Like Closed Captions, Softsubs provide a way to turn the subtitles (captions) on or off.

The only problem is that there are many different video players out there, and they don’t all support softsubs.

Fortunately, this isn’t much of a problem, because we can refer students to a free video player that supports softsubs on Windows and Android operating systems. Any students using Mac or iOs devices can use the Quicktime player to watch the softsubs.

A Simple Solution for Students

With the following workflow, you will be able to add your caption file to your video file.

This means that instead of having your student sort and match the appropriate two files into their video player, you can just send them the video file and the captions are automatically packed inside.

Handbrake

Cocktail with fruit and umbrella garnish next to a pineapple. — The Handbrake Logo

Handbrake is a free program (with a tasty looking logo) for converting video from a wide range of formats to modern widely supported formats. It also happens to be an excellent and easy to use tool for adding captions and subtitles to videos as softsubs. You can learn more at the Handbrake website (https://handbrake.fr/).

Handbrake is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.

You can download Handbrake from: https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php.

Handbrake Workflow

Handbrake is very easy to use, with just a few steps you will have a self-contained captioned video file.

Load the Video

The loading screen of Handbrake has two options for getting a video loaded, browse, or drag and drop. — The starting screen for Handbrake.

To begin, select the video you want to add captions to.

You can either browse to a file on your local machine (option 1), or you can drag and drop a video file into the designated area (option 2).

Select a Preset

With the video selected, choose a Preset from the Preset Panel.

You will see there are many presets available. Fast 1080 p30 is the recommended Preset setting for most videos.

Saving the Finished Video

Handbrake application window with the Save As feature highlighted. — Select your final destination for the completed video at the bottom of the Handbrake window.

Now that the video is loaded and the preset is selected, specify a destination on your hard drive for the finished video.

Add the Captions/Subtitles

Click on the Subtitles tab to reveal the subtitle settings to configure the settings for your captions.

Handbrake application with the Subtitles tab activated. — Subtitles tab in Handbrake.

Handbrake is often used to process multiple subtitle tracks per video, and as part of an automated workflow. Because of this, it starts with a default subtitle track. We don’t need the default subtitle track, so you can go ahead and delete it.

Delete option for subtitle track. — Delete the subtitle track with the little gray X at the right end of the track.

Click the “Import Subtitle” to select your caption file.

Import Subtitles button highlighted in Handbrake Application. — Import Subtitle button.

Verify your language and character coding are correct.

If you need to make hardsubs (or Open Captions), click the BURN IN option for Open Captions that are always on.

For Softsubs (or Closed Captions) leave the BURN IN option UNCHECKED. Your video will have Softsubs (Closed Captions) that the student can turn on or off.

Encode the Video

With the subtitle settings configured, you are ready to finish the video.

Click “Start Encode” and Handbrake begins processing your video.

Start Encode button.

Processing speed will vary based on the strength of your computer and the length of your video.

Watching the Softsubs

VLC media player, free and open source.

The VLC player is a free video player your students can use to watch your finished captions when the video is finished.

The VLC Player is cross-platform, free, and open source. You can learn more and download a copy of the VLC Player at: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html.

Now you have a complete solution for creating and distributing your own captioned video, using free and open source solutions, including a free and open source video player for students that supports a wide range of formats and media, such as DVD’s, audio CD’s, VCD’s, and various streaming protocols.

That completes our workflow, thanks for reading!

August 20, 2020August 20, 2020

Aegisub Advanced Subtitle Editor

Visit aegisub.org to download the application.

Aegisub Advanced Subtitle Editor is an open source tool for editing and creating digital subtitle/caption files. Providing support for editing, styling, and positioning subtitles, Aegisub supports many different subtitle file formats.

Aegisub provides an interesting way to assign the start and stop times of subtitles, with an audio waveform display that makes it easy to visually find the points in the timeline where sonic information is happening. This allows you to click in directly where the audio is happening instead of listening in real time.

There are Aegisub versions for both Windows and MacOS, with different versions written in 27 different languages.

Aegisub can produce subtitles in most languages in use today, across a range of character encoding that enables Asian and Cyrillic fonts as well as traditional western fonts.

In addition to being used by professional media production companies, Aegisub also has a huge user base in the fansubbing community, where it is used to create unofficial subtitles for videos.

Aegisub also features styles for creating karaoke videos.

Getting Aegisub

You can download Aegisub at http://www.aegisub.org/downloads/#current.

It is recommended to use the 32 bit version, as the 64-bit version is slower and does not provide the same range of supported technologies as the 32 bit version.

Using Aegisub to Create Captions

Aegisub is a powerful tool that allows for advanced workflows that include automation and sophisticated styling.

Fortunately, it is also easy enough to use that hobbyists and educators alike can use it for simple subtitling.

Start Aegis

After you’ve downloaded and installed Aegisub, start the Aegisub application.

The Aegisub application will open.

Aegisub application window immediately after opening. — Aegisub Application.

Open Subtitles

To begin, we will open your subtitle file.

Go to the File menu and select “Open Subtitles”You can also use Aegisub to transcribe your video, if you prefer (choose “New Subtitles” if you are going to transcribe your video in Aegisub.

Aegisub will open subtitles in the following formats:

.txt
.srt
.sub
.mkv
.mka
.mks
.ass
.ssa

Choose your Text import options, and click OK.

text import options, select and Actor separator, Comment starter, or include blank lines. — Leave unchanged and click OK for simple productions.

Your subtitles will be loaded into the text grid.

Open Video/Audio

Go to the Video or Audio window and choose the option you prefer for determining the timing for each line of captions.

In either case you will notice the wave form editor will display the audio information on a timeline.

Aegisub with subtitles and video file loaded.

Audio Display

Go to the Audio menu and select “Waveform display” if it is not already selected. This makes the audio information more distinct and easy to identify the start and stop points.

There are fader controls at the right of the audio display to control the horizontal and vertical zoom of the audio display.

Adjust the display so you can easily see when audio is beginning and ending.

Font Styling

Within the Line Editor window, you can format the font face and size, as well as the colors for outline, fill, and shadow (if you’re making karaoke, you can also format the karaoke timing colors).

It is recommended you do not use smaller than 20 pt fonts. Depending on the format of your video, you may want to use larger font sizes.

For best results, it is recommended you test the playback of your subtitles and be sure you are able to easily read them.

From within the Line Editing window, you can also format subtitles from multiple speakers, as well as create comments.

Edit Text to Size

Edit your text to make sure none of the lines are excessively long.

Aegisub provides a wide range of keyboard commands for editing text, splitting, and adding lines.

Aegisub will highlight in pink the field next to the Effect pull-down menu when a line of captions has too many characters.

Associate Timing

You need to assign a presentation time for each line of subtitles that defines a starting and ending time.

In the text grid, select the line of subtitles you want to assign a start and stop time for.

In the audio window, left-click where the subtitle begins, and right-click where the subtitle ends.

Editing subtitle presentation timing with the audio display.

Aegisub will place a red line at the starting point in the audio window, and a blue line at the end time.

Press “R” to play the currently selected range of audio to make sure you are capturing the correct portion of the audio waveform.

When you are satisfied with the timing, press ENTER and Aegisub will commit the time values and move to the next line in the text grid.

Proceed through the audio/video and text grid until each line of subtitles has a presentation time assigned.

Save or Export

When you have finished formatting and timing the subtitles, you can use Aegisub to preview your work and make sure the subtitles are properly synchronized with the spoken audio.

When you are satisfied, you can save the subtitles as an Advanced Alpha Substation (.ass) file, or else you can choose the Export option from the File menu to generate an .stl, .sub, .ssa, .ttxt, .txt, encore .txt, and .translation.txt.

Additional Resources

Aegisub is supported by an in-depth online manual that includes tutorials for getting started and delving into the advanced uses if you choose to go there.

Access the user manual for the latest version (3.2) at: http://docs.aegisub.org/3.2/Main_Page/

Find out more at the Aegisub project website: aegisub.org.

Now you can create and edit captions and subtitles for your instructional videos (and karaoke) with Aegisub for free.

Thanks for reading!

August 19, 2020August 20, 2020

Captioning with YouTube

As the largest video repository on Earth, it is somewhat surprising for videos to NOT show up on YouTube. It is a pretty safe bet that everyone knows about YouTube, and in fact, you probably already have an account.

However, if you’ve never uploaded a video to YouTube, you might be surprised at the tools available for enhancing your videos. Among these tools is a robust set of captioning tools.

Auto-Captions

Many people have encountered the auto-captions from YouTube.

A nifty novelty for most, a comic example of how AI and speech recognition can go wrong much of the time, the auto-captions of YouTube are certainly not a reliable solution for a student who is deaf or hard of hearing. The accuracy of the captions is too often too far off the mark to trust as sufficient means for a student who is deaf to understand what is being communicated.

However, YouTube makes it possible to edit the auto-captions it creates. Using the YouTube Subtitle tools, you can correct mis-recognized words, add punctuation and capitalization, and adjust timing and presentation for the captions.

YouTube Workflow for Captioning

YouTube provides a variety of options for adding captions to your videos:

You can upload a caption file if you have one.
You can manually transcribe and then auto-sync captions for your video.
You can wait for YouTube to process your video and generate auto-captions.

Once you have caption files within YouTube, you can also download the caption file and edit or use it with your local video or captioning software.

YouTube Studio

YouTube provides a set of tools for managing and editing the videos you upload to the YouTube service. It is called the “YouTube Studio”

Upload Video

The first step in captioning a video on YouTube is to upload a video.

You can find the upload option in the upper right-hand corner of the screen:

YouTube Video Upload menu. — Uploading video to YouTube.

Click on the camera icon with a white “plus” sign in the middle.
When the menu opens, select the option “Upload Video”.

Captioning Tools – Subtitles

When you have a video loaded into YouTube, you can select it from the “Videos” section of the YouTube Studio.

With the video selected, choose the “Subtitles” option from the left-hand menu.

Subtitles option highlighted from YouTube Studio menu. — Subtitles option from YouTube Studio menu.

The Subtitles screen will open, allowing you to manage the subtitles for your video.

If your video has been uploaded for at least an hour, it will likely have auto-captions generated, though the time required for generating auto-captions depends on the length and complexity of spoken dialog in your video, and how finicky the AI is behaving that day.

If you click the “Add” button, you will be presented with a menu of three choices for how you can add a subtitle track: “Upload a file”, “Transcribe and auto-sync”, and “Create new subtitles or CC”.

Subtitle methods from YouTube add new subtitle option. — Subtitling methods available in YouTube.

Click on the menu for a subtitle to get a menu of options for editing that subtitle.

Subtitle options for editing. — Individual subtitle editing options.

Clicking “Edit on Classic Studio” will open your video in caption editing mode, allowing you to adjust the captions and the timing of their presentation on screen.

YouTube classic caption editor — Classic Editor in YouTube.

Formatting Captions

There are a variety of considerations to keep in mind when formatting your captions. Refer to the Captioning Key for the complete set of formatting rules. Here are just a few you should know about and adopt into your workflow:

Fonts, Line Length, Presentation Rate, and Line Breaks

Traditional captions are formatted as white, mixed case fonts at approximately 32 characters per line.

Display each line of captions for at least 1.5 seconds, but no longer than 6 seconds.

Never break a line of captions between a modifier and the word it modifies, in a prepositional phrase, after a conjunction, or separating an auxiliary verb from the word it modifies.

Viewing Captions

With YouTube and any other video player, the ability to playback the captions you create is an important consideration.

YouTube CC and Gear icons. — CC and Gear icons from YouTube Player.

YouTube provides great support for captions. You can turn the captions on or off by clicking on the CC at the bottom of the Video Player. You can configure the captions and choose from different caption tracks (if available), by clicking on the gear icon next to the CC in the YouTube video player.

Downloading Captions

You can also download the caption files from YouTube as .vtt, .srt, or.sbv files to use with your local video player and/or editor.

This allows you to utilize the auto-caption function of YouTube to generate the beginnings of a text transcript/caption file. This can be a useful option when you need to distribute a video within your LMS.

YouTube Supports Captioning

Now you know YouTube offers a great captioning tool, especially at the price.

You can use the YouTube captioning tools to add or clean up the captions for your videos hosted on YouTube, or as an element of your workflow for generating captions for use in your school’s LMS.

Thanks for reading!

August 17, 2020August 17, 2020

Video Accessibility

Instructional Capabilities of Video

As a digital medium, video combines the power of visual and auditory information in a way that can provide a deeply engaging and provocative experience for the viewer.

Video can be especially powerful as an instructional material as the synchronicity of auditory and visual information creates a stronger cognitive impact for the viewer, resulting in an ease and immediacy of understanding for many viewers.

The ability to structure layers of information lends itself to portraying complex information that can be comprehended in a more time-efficient way. Adding the elements of dramatic context and storytelling allows for the communication of attitude and emotions in a particularly powerful way.

The point for instructional video accessibility is to determine if any of these information channels carry significant instructional content.

In other words, “Will this be on the test?”

If so, it needs to be communicated explicitly across the auditory and visual channels.

Video is Complex

As a medium, digital video covers a lot of categories of communication. Most obviously, video can provide a visual demonstration of procedures, as well as principles and concepts spelled out in text and illustrated in motion. Audio information can supplement and reinforce the visual information, as well as provide additional information beyond what is being displayed. The subtle integration of visual information in background elements and scenery can also reinforce and supplement information while post-production graphic overlays, closed captioning, and narrative description also provide additional channels for communication.

Basic Production Concerns

The quality of video and audio production is an accessibility concern. Audible and visual static, noise, insufficient volume, or weak lighting can all exacerbate problems of perception for people with visual or auditory disabilities.

Access Strategies

The access strategies for video are easy to state, but can be rather varied in their application.

In a nutshell, to make a video accessible requires captions and narrative descriptions. Essentially, the spectrum of information for the visual sense is portrayed through audio narrative description and the spectrum of information for the auditory sense is portrayed through captions.

Caption Complications

Not all digital video formats are capable of supporting caption files, sometimes the captions need to be included as separate files that the video player combines in the final playback.

Closed vs Open Captions

Most people are aware of Closed Captions, but have you ever heard of Open Captions?

Open Captions are a thing. The difference between Open Captions and Closed Captions is that Closed Captions can be turned on or off, while Open Captions are always visible on the screen.

There is such variety in video playback options that some people use Open Captions to avoid any problem with a student not being able to turn captions on if they need them.

As technology continues to improve, using Closed Captions is the preferred solution. If possible, ensure your institution utilizes an accessible video player within your LMS so your students have an accessible option that supports closed captions.

Emerging Narrative Descriptions

Like captions, narrative description is not always supported with the native video file. It is a relatively new advent for most people as a form of accommodation, and is still relatively uncommon for a lot of small production studios.

In many cases, adding narrative descriptions to older videos can be extra problematic in terms of technology and in finding time to squeeze in the descriptions between the spoken dialog.

Like so many accessibility practices, narrative description is more easily handled when it is included in the video planning and production instead of being added as a post-production element.

Text Transcript

While the optimum access strategies for video are captions and narrative descriptions, the value of a text transcript can not be overstated. While a text transcript is not an acceptable substitute for captions, it can be very useful when studying material.

Captions vs. Subtitles

Traditionally there have been different technologies used for displaying captions and subtitles. The digital video revolution also added some variety and chaos to the industry.

There is also a technical distinction between subtitles and captions that makes a significant difference in the effectiveness of the two as an accommodation.

Captions portray all the dialog as well as sound effects, and they are always in the same language as the spoken dialog.

Subtitles only portray the spoken dialog, and they are usually in a foreign language.

This distinction was not always known or respected by the producers of DVD’s and Video, and sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. Sometimes you will find “Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing” which are effectively captions.

Playback Support

There is still an issue for accessible video after the creation of captions and narrative descriptions, in the need for an accessible video player.

Not all video players support captioning or narrative description, making it impossible to turn the captions or description on.

In addition to limited support for captions and narrative descriptions, many video players are not keyboard accessible either.

Happily, there are a growing number of options for playing back accessible video with captions and narrative descriptions.

Two of my favorite options for playing accessible video:

Able Player – completely accessible and free HTML5 player.

Oz Player – completely accessible HTML5 video player.

Getting Accessible Video

Not surprisingly, it is possible to pay a vendor to provide captions and narrative descriptions for your instructional videos. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

The time and effort that goes into creating captions and narrative descriptions can be surprisingly intensive. However, if you have the desire and the time, there are free tools available to do it yourself.

YouTube and Vimeo

When using other people’s video from the Internet, the same rules apply, plus copyright law. Using videos from YouTube and Vimeo still need to have captions and narrative descriptions. The auto-captions of YouTube are not done to a level of acceptable quality for a legal accommodation, but they can be edited and improved on.

I’ll be covering YouTube captioning and additional workflows for creating your own captions over the next couple of days.

Thanks for reading!