Video Captions

Video captions, otherwise known as subtitles, provide visual alternatives to audio information.

The caption text is typically displayed below the video so you can see the video synchronized with the text.

 

 

Who Benefits from Captions? 

Captions provide an alternative to audio that helps all types of users, including:

• Deaf or hard of hearing
• English language learners
• Learning disabilities
• Visual or multi-modal learners

Additionally, captions or subtitles also help users who are:

• Watching videos in noisy environment
• Watching videos in quiet environment
• Scrolling on social media
• Deciphering unfamiliar accents

Guidelines for Effective Video Captions

• Imagine that you can’t hear and include whatever sounds you need to understand the meaning of the video.
• Include all sounds, including stutters, pauses, etc. So, if a speaker pauses and makes a sound, you can use an “erm,” or a “hmmm” in the caption text.
• Include background sounds whenever necessary to understand the meaning of the video.
• Punctuation matters. For example, the following two sentences have the same words but wildly different meanings.
  • “Let’s eat grandma!”
  • “Let’s eat, Grandma!”
• Whenever possible, synchronize the caption with the action on the screen.
• Watch your color contrast. If a white caption appears on a white or light-colored section of the video background, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to read.

Automatic Video Captioning

Captions benefit a wide variety of users, but they can only do so if they are accurate. Many video platforms, including YuJa, provide automated captioning. While automatic captions can help cut down the time needed to provide accurate captioning, be aware that auto-captioning relies on machine-generated algorithms that are never 100% accurate. For example, videos captioned in YuJa are supposed to be 90% accurate, but they often fall considerably short of this because of variances in recording environment, accents, and other complicating factors.

Auto-captions must be accurate to be usable. Oftentimes, that requires manual editing.

Use Video Captioning In...