1. Tools for Creating Captions
for YouTube Videos
Graham Armfield
2012 1
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

2. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Captioning YouTube Videos
Graham Armfield
Who am I?
• Web developer
• Accessibility consultant
• Accessibility tester
2
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

3. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
What this presentation will cover
• Why captions are a good idea
• Are automated captions any good?
• Using a transcript file
• More advanced tools
3
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

4. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Why captions are a good idea
• Makes your videos accessible to wider audience
• Those with hearing impairments
• Those with cognitive impairments
• Useful for those in noisy or office environments
• Translatable – for those who speak other languages
• Apparently also good for SEO too.
4
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

5. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Captions and YouTube
Three options:
• Automated captions
• Transcript files
• Caption files
We’ll explore each in turn
5
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

6. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Our Test Video
• Not professional quality
• Lots of background noise and interjections
• Different accents and quiet voices
• So… like many YouTube videos
6
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

7. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Before we start
Need to enable captions on your YouTube account
1. Go to Settings
2. Then Playback
3. Check both Captions checkboxes
7
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

8. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
8
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

9. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Automated Captions
• Should appear automatically after a while
• Occasionally service is not available
• Sometimes it won’t produce captions
• Give mixed results…
9
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

10. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Automated Captions
10
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

11. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Transcript File
• Need to type up what is said and any relevant extra
information
• Plain text file
• Simple syntax rules (see next slide)
• Upload at Video Manager, Edit
11
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

12. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Transcript File Syntax
Identify speaker
>>JULIAN: This has possibly been one of
the toughest years
Line break to split caption
to co-ordinate the judging of this
competition
…
>>CUSTOMER 1: Morning All
Identify other events
and pauses etc
[laughter] [pause]
12
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

13. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Transcript File Results
13
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

14. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Caption File
• Need to type up what is said and any relevant extra
information – same as transcript
• Simple syntax rules as per transcript
• Need to add in timing marks for each caption line
• Many formats – suggest use ttf as it’s more portable – eg
for use with other media players
• Upload at Video Manager, Edit
14
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

15. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Adding Timings for your Caption File
You’ll need a tool for that…
A number are available but I’m going to focus on one –
subtitle-horse.com
• Admittedly a bit fiddly and exasperating at first – but
gets easier as you learn
• Can import transcript file as basis for caption file
• Or just type the text in
• Export to a number of different file formats
15
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

16. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Subtitle Horse
16
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

17. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Add Caption File to YouTube
• Upload at Video Manager, Edit
• Perfect captions
• Colouring captions is possible but not unfortunately
in YouTube
17
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

18. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Alternative Tools
• Caption Tube
• OK for editing/typing captions individually, but can’t see a way to
import transcript file
• http://captiontube.appspot.com/
• Universal Subtitles
• OK for editing/typing captions individually.
• Import transcript file if you have an account
• http://www.universalsubtitles.org
• Overstream
• Need to set up an account
• I couldn’t get this to work
• http://www.overstream.net/
18
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

19. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Translation Demo
19
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields

20. Accessibility London 2012
City University London 21st September 2011
Any questions?
20
Coolfields Consulting www.coolfields.co.uk
creating effective, accessible websites @coolfields