Tag: closed captioning

A SCORM-ready template: Part 2D. Create a Captions file for the JW Media Player

Posted on October 13, 2008November 30, 2013 by ellen

Creating a captions file

Updated tutorial on captioning Windows Media

Posted on May 17, 2007 by ellen

Subtitle Workshop, by Urusoft is free captioning software (donation-ware) which allows you to easily transcribe and edit captions and output the resulting file to many different formats. I’ll be focusing on Windows Media format here, but you will find this a useful tool for captioning DVD’s, Quicktime, and Flash as well.

Note: A much more complete exposition of the concepts summarized in this tutorial is available to members of the Elearning Guild in the article A Guide to Captioning Windows Media and QuickTime Using Subtitle Workshop

Correcting Subtitle Workshop’s Settings for Quicktime Text format

Posted on December 9, 2004November 22, 2013 by ellen

When using Subtitle Workshop for creating Quicktime captions I found that the settings supplied with the program for Quicktime are incorrect. This can be fixed by creating a new Custom format and saving it in the Custom Formats folder inside the Subtitle Workshop folder.

Subtitle Workshop: Error on “Join Subtitles” command

Posted on October 14, 2004 by ellen

In Subtitle Workshop, trying to use the Join tool to join two SAMI files and recalculate the timings would result in this error every time: The following error (EConvertError) was derived from object TfrmJoin (frmJoin):

Closed Captioning Part II, Synching SAMI files using MS Producer

Posted on October 6, 2003 by ellen

Synching Sami files using MS Producer:
I received the MS Producer resources disk in the mail, and it contained one example of a template that has a captioning window below the video area.

To use it, you need to create a “SAMI” file, which is a text file with HTML-style tags to describe the captioning styles and timing for each line of caption text.

Lacking anything better at the moment, I use Producer to do the synching: Play your video in Producer for the length of one phrase, stop it, note the timing, and use “control-tab” to switch to a text editor where the SAMI file is being edited.

I found this procedure a bit slow, and had some problems with getting the exact timing right, but it does work. Complete instructions for captioning with Producer are available as a (Windows-only .exe file !) download HERE

A non .exe resource for understanding SAMI files is HERE

In search of closed captioning on web video

Posted on September 20, 2003 by ellen

In the web environment I develop for – a busy hospital – having some kind of captioning on presentations that include an audio track is not optional. Videos and narrated presentations are watched in common areas, and it’s not always possible to locate a pair of headphones or even convenient to use them if there are other things going on in the room that need to be heard.

There are also a few people with hearing disabilities that need the captions. So I’ve been searching for a captioning method for all our streaming video that is efficient, and creates web-based video that is compatible with Windows and Macintosh computers.

Although the Virage system will be ideal for this (voice recognition and screen-scraping create searchable, linked chunks of text associated with the exact locations in the video where they occurred.), it will not be in place soon enough.

Creating captions on VHS/DVD formats would be a nice capability, as well.