What is a caption?
A caption is a text overlay added to a video that displays what’s being spoken or shown on the screen and can even include descriptions of sound effects and music. Captions make videos more widely accessible for viewers who are hearing impaired. They also enable you to watch videos without the sound on. Captions are also helpful when you want to reach a global audience because you can offer captions translated into multiple languages.
There are two main types of captions:
- Closed captions - these can be turned on or off by the viewer and are often used on YouTube or streaming platforms.
- Open captions - these are always visible and cannot be turned off since they are a part of the video.
What you need to know about captions:
- SRT Files: Video editing platforms use SRT (SubRip Subtitle) files to manage captions because these files contain the text and time codes for when each caption should appear and disappear.
- Legibility: Captions have to be easy to read, so make sure the font is large enough has a good contrast with the background, and is displayed for long enough so viewers can comfortably read it.
- Auto-Generated Captions: Many video creation platforms like YouTube and Riverside offer automatic caption generation with built-in speech recognition technology. However, these tools rarely give perfect results, so you may need to dig in and manually edit some words and sentences when necessary
What is the purpose of captioning a video?
Captions make videos accessible to a wider audience — whether someone’s hearing impaired, can’t turn their sound on, or doesn’t understand the language being spoken, Captions make it easy for everyone to grasp what’s being conveyed on screen.
How do I know if a video has captions?
You’ll often see a CC button on a video player if the video has captions. Clicking on this button turns the caption on or off. But sometimes, even if you don’t see this button, there is a chance the video has permanent captions.
Who uses video captions?
A wide array of people use captions:
- People who are deaf or hard of hearing.
- Non-native language speakers who need help understanding the spoken language.
- Viewers watching in noisy environments like on the subway, where they can’t hear the audio, or in a quiet place like a library, where they can’t turn the audio up because people in their vicinity expect a quiet atmosphere.
- Individuals who prefer reading along while watching content for better comprehension.
- Content creators and businesses that want to make their videos accessible and reach wider audiences.
What are the rules for video captioning?
Your video captions have to be accurate, in sync with the audio, and stay on the screen for long enough. Captions should cover the complete audio content of the video, including sound effects and music interludes. Make sure the captions are readable and don’t cover any important visuals on the screen.
What's the difference between captions and subtitles?
While subtitles only capture spoken dialogue, captions also contain descriptions of non-verbal sounds like background music and sound effects.
How to add captions on Riverside
Riverside offers a transcription and captioning tool that automatically generates captions from your audio recordings. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to add captions to your videos using Riverside:
- Log in to your Riverside.fm account.
- Either record a new video or upload an existing video file that you want to edit and caption.
- Open the editor, and from the right toolbar, click on the Captions icon.
- Customize your captions by choosing font, color, size, and more.
- Drag your captions to position them on the video.
- Click on the Export button in the upper right corner to export the video with overlayed captions.
