Published: April 8, 2022
Published:
YouTube generates captions automatically for most videos. This is useful even if you are not using Youtube to serve them; you can download the resulting captions file to use on other video platforms. For example, if I want to share a video on Facebook or Twitter or transcribe an interview for an article.
And if you need to convert the captions file to another format there are plenty of websites that offer the service for free,
You will always need to check and edit the text that Youtube generates.
You can now wait a few hours or a few days for Youtube to automatically create the captions for your video. Once your video captions are generated and edited for accuracy you are ready to make your videos public.
However, if you are impatient, you can also add and edit captions manually.
Assuming captions have not already been generated you will be presented with a dialog box with three choices,
I recommend you use the Auto-sync option.
To use Auto-sync – write out a full transcript of your video – ignoring any related time information. Then click the Auto-sync option and paste your text into the form field. Click Submit.
Youtube will then create the timings automatically – syncing your text with the audio of your video.
Writing out a transcript of the video in your favourite word processor is easier than typing the captions into the YouTube form as you watch the video. I’ve done that many times and it’s a taxing and time-consuming activity.
To edit your captions, click the Subtitles link from the left-hand menu and choose the video you would like to edit.
To edit the automatically added captions click DUPLICATE AND EDIT and a new editable copy will be created.
Then click the Edit link for the copy of the published captions text.
YouTube is not good at adding proper punctuation and capitalisation of words – so be sure to look for those issues.
To download the captions file click on the three dots to the right of the EDIT AS TEXT link within the captions dialog and choose Download subtitles.
By default, it downloads the captions in .sbv format (it does for me – but check if that’s the case for you). Use a conversion service such as the one provided by Arizona State University to convert the file to .srt.
If you Google for .sbv to .srt conversion you will find several websites that will cover the file for free.
© Jim Byrne 2022
Tags: .srt, accessibility, automatic captions, captions, transcript, video, YouTube
Published: August 19, 2014
If you search the web for information related to web accessibility for deaf people you will find plenty of advice about captioning or providing transcripts for web based audio and video material. What you are unlikely to find is much discussion related to accessibility and language; for many deaf people English is not their first language, Sign Language is.
Although Sign Language provides an equivalent for everything that can be spoken or written, understanding written English – for some deaf people – is a process of interpreting from English to their first language, i.e. Sign Language.
Writing simple language and short sentences can help to make information more accessible to Sign Language users. However having discussed the issues with various informed users in the past (e.g. those at the Sign Language Interpreter Service in Glasgow) it seems that the most effective way to make content accessible to Sign Language users is to provide a Sign Language version of all content.
The problem here is that the obvious way to do this, i.e., providing video of Sign Language interpreters, is an expensive and resource hungry exercise. For this reason, many people are experimenting with signing avatars (virtual humans) as a way to deliver Sign Language equivalent to written content.
Tags: captions, deaf, hearing, hearing impaired, transcripts
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