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Closed Caption Video

Watch CC Videos

Captioning your online videos makes a difference. In the US alone, there are an estimated 28 million people with hearing loss. The vast majority of these people do not know sign language. In addition there are many individuals who speak English as a second language who appreciate the re-enforcement. If you're able to caption your videos in English, you'll also have the ability to translate into other languages with captions. Captioning reaches a mostly unappreciated audience, and videos with captioning get far more views than those without.

The following is a list of resources for individuals interested in captioning their own videos for the internet. Except where noted, these methods can be applied without any additonal cost. If you get stuck anywhere in the process feel free to contact me at webmaster@redeemeryakima.org.

Outline:

How Online Closed Captioning works - mechanics for geeks.
Using caption hosting sites like YouTube or Dotsub.com
Caption Creation Software
Scripting your own captioned videos for use on your website.
Making common Windows Media Player playback captioned text from your website.
Captioning in Silverlight and one option for Mac Users.
Some common questions.

METHOD:
Closed Captions by definition are subtitles that can be "closed" and not seen. They are different than subtitles which you might be able to do with a movie editor's "title" function which are embedded into the movie and can never be turned off.

To the viewer, several components work in the background in what appears to be a seemless orchestration. Whether you're watching captioned movies on YouTube or on an individual's page, the captioning process works the same way:

First there is a separate captioned file. Usually these contain the file extensions ".srt", ".sub", or ".smi", and they reside on the hosting site's file tree in the same location as the video. You might ask, "Why create this separate file when I can just use my editing software to add titles?" A lot of people do this for short videos (like this one) , but the first answer to this is that it takes far less time to prepare separate text files in captioning software. If you were to embed titles into something the length of a sermon, you would be at the task for weeks! Secondly, you probably will not have a way to create a contrasting black box behind your text. In all you have more control over appearance and timings. And, since your work is not permanently embedded in your video you can also replace it with translated text later on.

These files are really nothing more than text files (.txt) that contains scripted code in the header which indicate things like format and font size, color, and background color. Each line of text has its own set of timing codes preceding it which cause the text to appear and disappear when you want them to. There are Captioning Programs that create this scripting for you, and save the file to the format required. Here's what part of an .smi (SAMI) file looks like:

<SAMI>
<HEAD>
<STYLE TYPE="Text/css">

</STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<SYNC START=24100>
<P CLASS=SUBTTL>[ congregation singing<br>the end of a hymn ]
<SYNC START=27800>
<P CLASS=SUBTTL> 
<SYNC START=40101>
<P CLASS=SUBTTL>Grace and Mercy, and Peace<br>are all yours
<SYNC START=43601>
<P CLASS=SUBTTL> 
<SYNC START=43602>
<P CLASS=SUBTTL>from our living Lord<br>Jesus Christ, Amen.
<SYNC START=47102>
<P CLASS=SUBTTL> 

The second obvious component is the video itself. These exist as flash .flv files on sites like YouTube and Dotsub.com. When you upload your .wmv files to those site, they convert to the correct format automatically. If you want to create your own presentation from a webpage on your own site you might need to convert your file into something else yourself with a video converter.

Thirdly there is a program that exists on the hosting site which coordinates playback of the video file and the captioned file. Some parameters are encoded in the html on the webpage you're looking at as well.

So, you have a captioned file with a particular format, a video which has to be a particular format, and a "player" program on the website and other codes on the webpage putting all the pieces together. Fortunately, just about anyone can upload and caption thier own movies without scripting skills. Sites like YouTube and Dotsub have all of the necessary components in place except for the captions themselves, and you can embed the results into your own website pages.

USING YOUTUBE AND DOTSUB.COM
Sites like these are becoming increasingly more common. Before involving yourself in them, be mindful of playtime duration limits or size limits. As of this writing, YouTube was restricted to 10 minute durations. Dostsub.com has a 300MB limit, but otherwise no playtime duration limit. I like the latter because I can upload a 20 minute sermon at 140MB, but I can't upload a 20 minute sermon of any size to YouTube without chopping it into two separate videos.

These sites work the same way:
1) set up an account. (free)
2) upload a video
3) either create the caption text on the spot or with Caption Creation software.
4) upload the completed captioned file.

CAPTIONING SOFTWARE
With Dotsub.com you can actually create your captioning right on the site. However, if you are captioning a sermon you probably don't want to do all of your work in one sitting and risk having your work open for many hours. Programs like "Subtitle Workshop" give you the flexibility to work on and save your work on your computer over many sessions. This page contains a power point presentation and a screenshot tuturial on how to use URUSOFT's Subtitle Workshop:

http://www.redeemeryakima.org/training.html

SCRIPTING ON YOUR OWN

If you want, you can create your own presentation from your website. You will have to upload a "player" to your web servers file tree, along with the video and captioned file. If you use the Flash method, you will also have to convert your video into a .flv file usings a converter like Xilisoft Video Encoder. This requires a lot of work on your part, but once you've established a script that you like you can use it over and over again. If you want you can just copy the script I have below and change the video file names and other parameters to your liking.

Here is a page that provides a flash player for your web server:
http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-flv-player/

and a construction wizard within this site:
http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-player-setup-wizard

Here is an example of a video I did using the flash technique generated from this site:
http://www.redeemeryakima.org/Sermon8-17-2008.html

and the code used... (note the required "addVariable" for captions!) This is what goes on your .html file.
--------------
<em>
<div id="player" style="height: 340px; width: 517px; position: relative; left: 44px; top: 7px;"> This line positions the player and also designates a size larger than your video for the player frame.

<script type="text/javascript" src="../../swfobject.js">
</script> <script type="text/javascript">
var so = new SWFObject('http://www.yourwebsite.org/mediaplayer.swf','mpl','406','332','8') Mediaplayer.swf is the player existing on your website.
;so.addParam('allowscriptaccess','always')
;so.addParam('allowfullscreen','true')
;so.addVariable('height','332') Height and width have to match the same instructions three lines up (green)
;so.addVariable('width','406')
;so.addVariable('file','Sermon8-17-2008.flv') this is the video file which has to be "flash video" .flv format.
;so.addVariable('image','revelation.jpg') this is simply an opening picture, in this case, John on Patmos.
;so.addVariable('captions','http://www.yourwebsite.org/Sermon8-17-2008.srt') The path to your caption file.
;so.write('player');</script>
</div>
</em>
--------------

The above example is for .flv files. With some further exploration, you might find other
formats that will work. For example, there is the new "silverlight" player on this site. I've been using Microsoft Media Encoder 2 to accomplish this, but perhaps this is an alternative:
http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-wmv-player/

HOW TO GET WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER TO SHOW CAPTIONS

One little known way to caption a video is to upload a .smi extension caption file to the same location as your .wmv file. The most recent versions of Windows Media Player look for .smi files and play them by default. Older players require that the user "turn on" their caption option ahead of time. One thing I haven't worked out is how to get the text to align in the center. So far all of the videos I've tried this with end up with the text over to the left and in Times Roman font.

CAPTIONING IN SILVERLIGHT
If you have Microsoft Expression Encoder 2, you can import .smi captions using the metadata tab's "Script Commands" section. Encoder 1 did not have this ability. One important thing to remember here is that you cannot have lines greater than 35 characters each. Exceeding that limit results in no words showing at all.

An example of a captioned movie in Silverlight:
http://www.redeemeryakima.org/silverlight2/Psalm82.html

AT LEAST ONE MAC OPTION
Mac people might be interested in this great tutorial by Israel Melendez. http://tecnocato.podbean.com/2007/11/04/tecnocato-008-how-to-closed-caption-cc/
Here, the movie editing program is "Quicktime Pro" assisted with the use of "Annotation Edit". The captioning text is in .scc format.

COMMON QUESTIONS:

HOW LONG DOES THIS TAKE?
Efficiency improves with practice. The first videos I did seemed to take up to a week at a couple hours per evening. The most recent 20-minute sermon I did took 5 hours. The time required is a lot, but consider the return in the size of your audience: Captioning is all the difference between a video with a few hundred views and one with several thousand over a few months.

HOW DO I MAKE DVD's WITH CLOSED CAPTIONING?
DVD's contain .ifo and .vob files. The captioning is encoded into these files. I haven't yet figured out how to manipulate these files to contain captioning. If anyone knows, please contact me or leave your method on this wiki.

redeemeryakima	Latest page update: made by redeemeryakima , Apr 26 2009, 2:33 AM EDT (about this update About This Update Updated one last time, removed defunct Google Video information. - redeemeryakima 1042 words added 715 words deleted view changes - complete history)
	Keyword tags: video editing More Info: links to this page

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