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YouTube does captioning. Here’s the lofi way I clunked out captions for this video. And here’s more help.

1. Create a text file with your captions. The format is three lines per caption (quick example below):
   1. timecode: start, stop
   2. text to display
   3. blank line
2. Go to my videos. Select the video to caption. Click “Edit captions and subtitles” under the video information.
3. Select your caption file to upload. Select the language. If you enter a name, it will be appended to the language. For example, if you use the name “Testing,” YouTube will offer users the caption track “English: Testing.” You can’t edit the name, as far as I can tell, once a caption file is uploaded.
4. Click “Upload” to upload the file. YouTube will process it. I goofed the format the first time, and it complained right away.

To view captions, look for a “CC” box in the lower right. Click the box, and select the caption track to play.

Here’s the sample caption file:

0:00:00.000,0:00:02.000
I do not like green eggs and ham

0:00:02.000,0:00:04.000
I do not like them, Sam I am

0:00:04.000,0:00:06.000
Not in a car! Not in a tree!

0:00:06.000,0:00:08.000
Not in a house! Sam, let me be!

I tried a sample with all the zeroes dropped out (e.g. 00:00:00,00:00:02) and it works fine.

Now to find out more about software to make these kinds of files.

Posted Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 3:27 pm under Nerdliness. Follow responses with the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.