Transcript Captioning Basics

Captioning Basics
Beth Case
Program Manager for Digital, Emerging, and Assistive Technologies
University of Louisville
[email protected]
Assumptions
You know what captioning is.
You know why it needs to be done.
Three step process
1. Create verbatim transcript
2. Create line breaks
3. Synchronize captions with the video
Step 1: Create verbatim transcript
Transcript standards:
• Verbatim
• Include speaker identification
• Use proper spelling, capitalization and
punctuation
• Include essential sound effects
Tools to help with transcripts
• Express Scribe
(http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/)
• Transcribe (http://transcribe.wreally.com)
• Foot pedals
What about speech recognition
software?
According to research:
• Speech Recognition results are inaccurate, unreliable, and
inconsistent – with error rates often exceeding 20%.
• 80 – 90% accuracy is simply inadequate for most
applications.
• Accuracy below 97% is insufficient when comprehension is
crucial.
• Transcripts with high error rates do not satisfy compliance
with legal mandates.
• It costs more to edit speech recognition scripts than it does
to use a professional transcriber to start with.
Step 2: Create line breaks
• Refer to the Captioning Key for standards
(https://www.dcmp.org/captioningkey/)
• Two lines per caption is preferred
• Lines should not exceed 32 characters
• Create grammatically correct line breaks
– New sentence starts new caption.
– Start a new line after a comma.
– Keep grammatical phrases together.
Examples
Rule
Inappropriate
Appropriate
Do not separate modifiers from
the word it modifies.
Mark pushed his black
truck.
Mark pushed
his black truck.
Do not break propositional
phrases.
Mary scampered under
the table.
Mary scampered
under the table.
Do not separate auxiliary
(helping) verbs from the verb it
modifies.
Mom said I could
have gone to the movies.
Mom said I could have gone
to the movies.
Do not break a line after a
conjunction.
In seconds she arrived,
and
he ordered a drink.
In seconds she arrived,
and he ordered a drink.
Save your transcript
in a plain text file.
Step 3: Synchronize captions with the
video
Synchronization standards:
• As close as possible to matching the audio.
• Captions should be displayed for at least 2
seconds.
• If there are long periods of silence, add a
caption that says “no audio” or “silence”.
Using YouTube to caption videos
You must “own” the video.
Do not use YouTube’s auto-transcription. On
average, it is 65% accurate.
.
Click on the “CC”
under the video.
Choose “Add new subtitles or CC”
then choose the language the video
is in.
Choose “Upload a file” and then choose
“Transcript” and upload your file.
Make sure the transcript is correct, then
choose “Set timings”
Play the video to make sure the timing is
correct. You can edit the text and the timing to
make it perfect!
Once you’re happy, click “Publish”
What if I don’t own the video?
Try to contact the owner and ask if they will caption
the video.
Ask the owner if they will publish the captions if you
create them.
Use Amara.org as a work-around. Students will have
to go to Amara.org to view the videos instead of
YouTube.
Questions
Contact Information
Beth Case
[email protected]
502-852-7689