How to Caption a Video that Someone Else Owns

How to Caption a Video that Someone Else Owns

....If it is a YouTube Video:

  1. First, check to see if the Community Contributions is enabled.
  2. Check Amara
  3. Use Amara and YouTube's auto-generated captioning 

...If it is a Video that is Not Hosted on YouTube/Vimeo: 

  1. Check with the author or publisher to see if there are compliant closed captioning available 
  2. Check with your school's library to see if your school has a video streaming subscription. There may be a captioned video available. 
 

YouTube Community Contributions

 

First, check to see if the Community Contributions feature is enabled.

Sample YouTube Comment to the Author (Turn On Community Contributions)

The easiest way to communicate with the author of a video is to comment on their video. Feel free to copy and paste the sample below or adapt it. 

Hello! I found your video to be extremely helpful. If it is all right with you, I would love to use your video in my course, but I need to provide quality closed captioning to my students. I would be happy to help all viewers enjoy your video, and help with closed captioning. If you can please turn on "Community Contributions" for this video, I would really appreciate it! Please use this tutorial to grant me access to the captions.

Turn on or off for a specific video: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6052538?hl=en Links to an external site.

 

Thank you so much! 

Note: Notice that the URL above is not descriptive. Unfortunately, YouTube has a very basic comment editor. Hopefully, future improvements will allow for a descriptive hyperlink application. 

 

Search for Captioned Videos 

 

If you’d like search results to only show videos with captions available, you can enable a search feature by either typing in "cc" in the search bar after entering the keywords or by using the closed caption Filter.

Option 1:

Enter your keywords in the YouTube search bar followed by ", cc."  For example, type in "Captioning video, cc" in the YouTube search bar to find captioned videos whose keywords include "Captioning video"

Option 2:

  1. Enter your keywords in the YouTube search bar
  2. Click the Filters button
  3. Click CC (closed caption)

This will limit your search to only videos that have closed captions available.

Videos with captions available will have a “CC” icon underneath the video summary in search results.

... if you are unable to find a captioned version of the YouTube video that you would like to use in a course, first refer to the Captioning Decision Tree and then use the appropriate platform to locate or add captions in a video.

 

Amara

 

Before using Amara check with your institution's copyright guidelines. 

Getting Started 

  1. How to register for an Amara account. Links to an external site.
  2. How to sign into Amara. Links to an external site.
  3. Browse Amara Support Center Links to an external site. for specific help. 

Captioning in Amara

Leverage YouTube's auto-generated captioning to ease your workload!

Nowadays, if anyone uploads a video on YouTube, YouTube will automatically generate closed captioning. Let's use this to our advantage for videos we don't own but need to caption. Creating captioning from scratch takes a long time and it's a lot faster to leverage existing auto-generated captioning. 

Step 1

Select your desired video on YouTube and verify that it does auto-generated captioning available by selecting the CC button in the button right-hand corner on the video. 
Auto-generated captioning lacks punctuation, spelling, and accuracy. 

 

Step 2

Under the video, on the right, select the three-dot More button > Open Transcript


 

Step 3

On YouTube, take note of its URL.
You will need to copy and paste this URL in Amara to begin captioning. 



Step 4

Once logged into Amara Links to an external site., paste your YouTube URL and begin subtitling 
Select Start Subtitling > Subtitle for Free on Amara Public > Begin > Subtitle a Video for Free on Amara Public.
Copy and paste the YouTube URL into the textbox under Subtitle a Video for Free on Amara Public > select Begin.



Step 5

If the video has no existing community-contributed captions the video's Contribute section will not have a language.

Select Add a new language! > This video is in English > Subtitle into English.





Step 6

Amara has three major workspace sections:

  • Review the guidelines provides keyboard shortcut tips. Using Tab to play/pause the video is very helpful.
  • Check the timing allows you to sync captions to the video's audio.
  • Submit your work allows you to type what you hear, sync timing, review and complete.


          

Step 7

Begin typing your text or copying and pasting from YouTube into the Amara editor. 
For ease, provide two lines captioning. You may copy and paste all of YouTube's transcript into Amara or you can copy two lines at a time. It might be easier to copy two lines from YouTube's Transcript at a time into Amara, listen to the audio, edit the text as necessary, and repeat. Whichever is easier for you! This process will take some time. 




Step 8

Edit text as needed for punctuation and spelling and creating line breaks. 
Per Amara's captioning guidelines, each line is no more than 42 characters.
Use the Shift+Enter key to create a new line with the caption thread. If you press just Enter you will create a new caption thread. 



Step 9

Next, select Review in the upper right-hand corner in the Submit your work section to begin syncing captions to sound.

  1. Use Tab to play and pause content.
  2. In the timeline, select where the caption needs to begin and adjust the teal ends by either lengthening or shortening the caption. The goal is to sync captions to audio accurately.
  3. When you are finished syncing captions to audio, select Publish.


  4. You're finished!
    After Captioning in Amara, place the video Amara link to your newly captioned video into Canvas as outlined in the next section below. 
    At this time you cannot embed Amara videos into Canvas. 

 

Use this page orientation to embed your newly captioned video

 
  1. First place your descriptive Amara URL that links to the captioned version in Amara onto your chosen Canvas content page.
  2. Second, provide your guidance to students on how you want them to engage with the video. Will students need to take notes for an upcoming quiz on this topic? Is there something about the video you need the students to pay close attention to? 
  3. Lastly, embed the YouTube video. 

Page orientation directions on how to weave Amara link with captioned video version.

Search for Captioned Videos 

Check out other captioned videos in Amara. Links to an external site. Review videos for quality captioning, and verify every video to verify proper closed captioning (not just subtitles.) You may edit existing subtitles, and add non-textual sounds if needed.

 

Curating/Search for Closed Captioned Videos

 

It's good practice to use closed captioned videos as you're building new instructional content. Here are a couple of resources you can search for closed captioned videos. 

  1. First, check your school's library to see if the institution subscribes to video streaming services. Some of these video databases can be added to Canvas, which is very convenient! You should be able to view the video in the Rich Content Editor under More External Tools. 
  2. In addition, check the following resources:
    • 3C Media Solutions 
    • YouTube 
    • Amara 
    • Vimeo 
  3. If there is a specific video you'd like to use, but cannot find an accessible version, you may want to consider in trying to find an equal alternative accessible video. 
  4. If there is a specific video you feel would be valuable to students, please discuss your options with your Distance Education Coordinator and/or Canvas Admin.