Create, upload, and edit captions

This article outlines information related to our legacy captions experience. Not what you're looking for? Read about our new captions experience.

Captions are an important and expected part of communicating effectively with video. Not only do captions make your videos more accessible (for example, offering text instead of audio to the hearing impaired), they also offer an opportunity to broaden your viewership to speakers of other languages.

Use the Captions Manager within Vidyard to:

• Create your own captions from scratch
• Upload an SRT or VTT caption file (if you already have captions for a video)
• Request an audio transcript as a paid service (to then use as captions for your video)

In Vidyard, captions are set at the video level. This means that any captions added to an individual video will become available for that video within the players where it has been included.

Requirements

• Must be a paid Vidyard platform user
• Must belong to a role with the Edit Players permission enabled

Select a video to manage captions

1. From the Vidyard dashboard, select Content > Videos (all of your uploaded videos are available here)
2. Hover over the video you want to manage, then click Captions.

Create a new caption

1. Select the New Caption dropdown menu, then click Create
2. Select a language from the Caption Language dropdown, then click OK. This should reflect the language in which you will write your captions.
    
3. Click + Add Cue to open an empty caption cue
4. Enter your caption text in the empty cue box. Use the timestamps to determine the beginning and end of each cue.
5. Click OK to complete a cue.
6. Completed cues will appear along the right-hand side in a list. Click on an individual cue to edit its text or duration.
   
7. Repeat until your video has been fully captioned, then click Save Changes
8. Return to the Captions tab to publish your work

Upload video captions

If you already have an SRT or VTT caption file for your video, you may choose to upload it.

Remember: SRT and VTT files must be UTF-8 encoded. This is especially important for foreign languages with special characters.

1. From the video settings Captions tab, select New Caption > Upload
2. Select the language of your caption from the Caption Language dropdown menu, then click Choose File to select the SRT or VTT file you want to upload.
   • Learn how to properly format VTT files and SRT files
      
3. When the file upload completes, your captions will be automatically published.

Edit a video caption

There are a number of reasons why you may need to edit an existing video caption--a spelling mistake, a grammatical error, or even a correction to the timestamps and positioning of your text.

For all simple corrections, use the captions editor to make changes.

1. From the video settings Captions tab, select Edit next to the captions you want to change
   • If necessary, select the pencil icon to change the specified language of a select caption
     
2. For each correction, select the cues that need changing from the list along the right-hand side of the editor
3. Adjust the text and timestamps as needed
4. Click OK to update
5. Click Save Changes when complete. Updated captions will need to published again

Handling caption file errors

For SRT or VTT files that have been uploaded, you may encounter an error that prevents the platform from reading the file. Errors are often the result of special characters, incorrect timecode formatting, or simply the way a file was originally exported.

For example, when the < and > symbols are used, these must be changed in the editor or caption file to < and > respectively.

1. Hover your cursor over the error icon within the video settings Captions tab. This should give you an indication of the type of error and where it is located.
2. Click Edit next to the caption file with errors. Use the dropdown menu to filter by cues with errors and correct them.

Note: Note all caption errors can be fixed in the editor. For major formatting errors, download your caption file, correct it, then upload again to platform. See our article on how to fix an SRT file with caption errors for more information.

Set a default caption

For videos with more than one set of caption files, choose a caption to act as the default. The chosen caption will display by default on players where captions are set to appear automatically.

Determine caption behavior

How captions behave during playback is determined at the player level. 

1. From the Vidyard dashboard, select Content > Players
2. Hover over the player that you want to manage, then click Settings > Design
3. Use the Captions dropdown menu to specific how video captions within that player will behave
   • Automatic: The default caption (determined at the video level) is automatically displayed during payback. Captions menu available for view to switch language as well as turn ON/OFF.
   • Optional: Provides menu along the player toolbar, allowing viewers to select available captions as well as turn them ON/OFF.
   • Disabled: Captions menu will no longer display along the player toolbar, preventing viewers from choosing from available captions.
     

Note: You may also apply caption behavior as a default player setting. Remember, changes made to default player settings apply to all newly created players going forward. Changes to existing players will have to be applied individually.