Introduction
Most educational institutes in the United States are required by law to have closed captions for its videos. The Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal legislation aim to ensure equal opportunities for learners with disabilities.
What are closed captions?
Closed captions are text on a video, indicating what words or sounds are on the video. Below is a still image of a video with closed captions visible.
What are closed captions?
Closed captions are text on a video, indicating what words or sounds are on the video. Below is a still image of a video with closed captions visible.
Closed captions are not part of the video file itself. Closed captions are a separate file. Often, you'll see closed caption files with .srt as the file name extension, but there are more file types available.
For a video player supporting closed captions to display the captions correctly, a closed captions file must follow a certain format. It must include the order of the lines of text to display, the exact times for the player to display that line of text, and, of course, the text to display.
For a video player supporting closed captions to display the captions correctly, a closed captions file must follow a certain format. It must include the order of the lines of text to display, the exact times for the player to display that line of text, and, of course, the text to display.
Example of a .srt file
Why not just use auto-generated closed captions?
While several video service providers offer automatic closed captions, the captions provided aren't as accurate as possible. Sometimes the errors range from silly to risqué.
What was actually said: First of all, we're going to heat the copper.
What appeared in auto-generated captions: First of all, we're going to hit our car.
What was actually said: Strainers should be kept clean.
What appeared in auto-generated captions: Strangers should be kept clean.
What was actually said: Go to the overstate and hit F6.
What appeared in auto-generated captions: Go overstay and have sex.
Students using video closed captions deserve the most accurate captioning in order to understand the content.
This course will teach you how to create a closed captions file for a video from its transcript. Below is the outline for this course. You can begin by clicking on the sections below, using the navigation bar, or clicking the Next button at the bottom of the page.
While several video service providers offer automatic closed captions, the captions provided aren't as accurate as possible. Sometimes the errors range from silly to risqué.
What was actually said: First of all, we're going to heat the copper.
What appeared in auto-generated captions: First of all, we're going to hit our car.
What was actually said: Strainers should be kept clean.
What appeared in auto-generated captions: Strangers should be kept clean.
What was actually said: Go to the overstate and hit F6.
What appeared in auto-generated captions: Go overstay and have sex.
Students using video closed captions deserve the most accurate captioning in order to understand the content.
This course will teach you how to create a closed captions file for a video from its transcript. Below is the outline for this course. You can begin by clicking on the sections below, using the navigation bar, or clicking the Next button at the bottom of the page.
Course Outline
01 Lesson |
Prepare text |
02 Lesson |
Add timings |
03 Lesson |
Save the file |
04 Lesson |
Adjust times |
Regardless of whether they have a disability of any kind, a majority of students use closed captions at least some of the time.
- 2017 EDUCASE article "A Rising Tide: How Closed Captions Can Benefit All Students"
