Closed captioning products include hardware caption encoders and decoders, software solutions for authoring captions and subtitles, and live video delivery. Turn on closed captions on your Windows 10 computer. To turn on closed captioning: On a Windows 10 PC that’s playing a video, right-click or tap-and-hold anywhere on the video. A menu bar will appear at the bottom of the screen. If closed captioning is available, a CC icon will be displayed. Tap or click the CC icon. Tap or click the. Web Captioner runs on your existing computer.Even if your computer isn’t the latest and greatest, it will still work great with Web Captioner. All you need is a microphone or some other audio input source connected to your computer. How to make closed captions and transcriptions efficiently. In this article, we have reviewed video captioning tools and machine transcription tools, which are organized in three categories: transcription tools, captioning platforms (browser-based), and captioning software (must be downloaded) to help you choose the one works best for you.

AST was founded with the goal of making the process of captioning video faster and more affordable. By bringing down closed captioning costs, we make it easier for companies and organizations to make their video accessible to everyone. We’ve worked with thousands of organizations over the past 10 years, and a few weeks ago we hit another milestone: we delivered our five millionth caption file.

Closed Captioning Cost Savings

Prior to the introduction of CaptionSync by AST, video publishers would often pay more than $10 per minute of video for closed captioning, and would often wait two weeks or more to get back the results of a very manual process. AST has brought down the average cost of closed captioning to around $3 per minute or less in many cases, and it is safe to say that we have saved publishers, educators, government agencies, and other producers of educational video tens of millions of dollars over the last 10 years. We know that our customers are grateful for these cost benefits, and that they appreciate our quick turnaround times (time is money, after all).

However, as video publishers that are new to closed captioning come into the fold and they start to add up the cost of captioning the terabytes of video that they plan to produce, it’s easy for purchasers to become overwhelmed by the potential cost of closed captioning. They do the math, multiplying the number of minutes of video by the cost per minute of closed captioning, and suddenly they have a very large new budget line item that they hadn’t anticipated. Which inevitably raises the question: could the cost of closed captioning be even cheaper? In this world of technology and global outsourcing, shouldn’t there be a way to bring down the cost of captioning to almost zero?

And indeed, there is a new crop of closed captioning companies that are attempting to do just that, with several companies advertising closed captioning pricing as low as $1.00 per minute. There are a few methods that captioning companies can use to hit these low cost thresholds: 1) using speech recognition, 2) using crowd-sourcing, or 3) using very inexpensive offshore labor. Let’s examine each scenario.

Closed Captioning Costs Using Speech Recognition

For many video producers, finding software that could automatically transcribe and caption video in a few minutes would be like finding the holy grail. Speech recognition does hold great promise, and it continues to get better over time. However, even in the best cases, transcription using speech recognition typically yields results in the low 90 percent accuracy range. While 90 or 95% accuracy may seem to be “good enough,” the fact is that the intelligibility of captions drops precipitously with error rates of higher than 3% (see our research) . If you have multiple speakers in the video, non-standard accents, ambient noise, technical content, or anything less than perfect audio quality, accuracy rates quickly drop below 80% with speech recognition.

Software programs that will convert audio to text using speech recognition technology are available for costs ranging from a few hundred dollars per user to more than $20,000 for an appliance that can process multiple video or audio files at once. If you have thousands of hours of video to process this up-front cost may initially seem like a bargain, until you take into account the hidden costs. Your professors, lecturers, and subject matter experts may need to “train” the software to recognize their voice, recording specific content and correcting errors. Even if the system is designed to work without training, correcting the errors is extremely time-consuming and tedious. If transcripts need to be reviewed and corrected by subject matter experts or editors, a few hours spent by these reviewers can quickly erase any cost advantages of using a speech recognition program instead of professional transcription and captioning at $3 per minute.

Crowd-Sourced Captioning Costs

Another option is to crowd-source your closed captioning. Think of this as the Wikipedia model of closed captioning. One person might transcribe and caption a small portion of your video. Another person in another corner of the world works on another minute or two of the video. By the time your one hour video is finished, several dozen people may have worked on captioning your video, and they may have done it for free (like Wikipedia volunteers)! The crowd-sourcing model appeals to the inner-libertarian in all of us. Why should professional transcribers have a monopoly on transcription? Doesn’t it make sense to tap into all of that idle brain-power that would otherwise go to waste, watching soap operas or late-night reruns?

Here again, it’s the hidden costs that add up. Just as with a Wikipedia article, a crowd-sourced closed caption file may look pretty good at first glance, but the devil is in the details. Did your crowd-source laborers all spell names and technical terms correctly and consistently? Did all of them take the time to research spellings or acronyms? Do your crowd-source workers always meet their turnaround time deadlines? Did all of them take time to re-listen to portions of the audio where an important phrase was unclear, or might some of them have been distracted by an episode of Ellen playing on TV in the background? Remember, it’s not the crowd-source worker’s reputation on the line if there is a mistake or delay, so they don’t have the same level of motivation or commitment as a professional transcriber.

Before you consider crowd-sourcing as an option, consider the value of your reputation as an educational video producer, and the potential cost associated with errors, inconsistencies, and delays. The quality of your captions should be on par with the quality of your video content. Anything less is doing a disservice to that significant portion of your viewers who choose to, or need to, watch your videos with captions.

Closed Captioning Sweatshops?

Finally, let’s look at one more option: using inexpensive overseas labor for closed captioning. We’re not going to make a protectionist argument, or insist that “captioned in the USA” is the only viable option. However, let’s do the math again and look at the realities of this option. The industry standard for professional transcribers is that it takes on average four to six times the length of an audio recording to create an accurate verbatim transcription, depending on the quality of the audio. In other words, a fifteen minute video would take a trained professional 60 to 90 minutes, just for transcription. Amateurs or beginners would take longer. Let’s be optimistic and assume that a beginner could transcribe the same video in six to eight times the length of the video. In addition, captioning companies that take advantage of inexpensive labor often have the transcribers manually set the timing of the captions as well (marking the pop-on time stamps and breaks between phrases). This takes additional time — roughly two to four times the length of the video. To add it all up, an untrained captioner could easily spend eight to ten times the length of a video to create a timed caption file. Let’s call it 9X on average, meaning that each minute of video takes nine minutes for this beginner to caption.

Now let’s work backward from an advertised price of $1.00 per minute for closed captioning. Despite using overseas labor, these companies have significant overhead here in the U.S.: $8 or $9 goes to Google when you click on one of their ads, they have to pay for the offices of their sales and business development folks in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or New York City, their bankers and venture capitalists take a cut, etc. Let’s again be optimistic and assume that these companies are giving half of each dollar to the people who did the captioning work. $0.50 for nine minutes of work equates to $3.33 per hour, and that’s assuming the person doing the transcription and captioning is working on captioning video all the time, with no breaks. When you factor it all in, the captioner for a $1 a minute captioning company is probably making well under $3 per hour. Will $3 per hour transcribers provide the level of commitment, expertise, and quality that you and your customers deserve?

Why Closed Captioning Quality Matters

Hopefully one point is clear from these examples: if you are creating high-quality, professional video content, your closed captions should be of equally high quality, and you will undoubtedly need to pay more than the bare minimum to get that quality.

In fact, if your organization is covered by ADA requirements, Section 508 regulations, accessibility requirements handled by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights, or similar legislation in many other countries, then the requirement to provide captions at a quality level that is on par with the quality of your video content could be seen as a legal obligation. Here’s why: ADA Title III requires that people with disabilities “may not be denied full and equal enjoyment” of the good and services provided to others who use those services. Most subsequent legislation and court decisions have supported this tenet of “full and equal enjoyment.” This means that if you provide high quality educational content but mediocre quality closed captioning, you’re not treating all of your customers equally, opening your organization up to potential lawsuits.

The specter of lawsuits may sound harsh, but it really comes down to fairness. If you are creating high quality video — hiring top-notch subject matter experts and instructional designers, and using high quality audio and video equipment and software — shouldn’t your closed captions be of equally high-quality? And shouldn’t you be willing to pay for that level of quality, for the benefit of those who use the captions? Professional transcribers do not get paid an exorbitant amount for their work, but they do have commitment to providing your customers with the quality content that they deserve. Anything less would be unfair to your customers.

Closed captioning software is a must for video content creators. Captions let you reach a broader audience and remove language barriers. Closed caption tracks ensure that your content is accessible for those with hearing impairments. They provide privacy when listening to podcasts or watching viral video clips.

One of the biggest benefits of captioning is that it improves indexing for SEO purposes. This increases your Google rankings and makes your content more discoverable.

Captioning rates high among best practices for video producers. Which is the best captioning software for the task? Check out our closed captioning software reviews.

Find The Captioning Software That Is Right For You

There are three types of captioning video content creators use regularly. Open captioning features embedded text in video files. This translates when characters speak a language unfamiliar to the audience. It also plays a role in narrating the action.

Subtitling is similar and involves translating speech to text.

Closed captioning involves adding timed text files to video. The viewer can then turn these on or off depending on their needs. Speech recognition converts audio into texts and translates actions or feelings.

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires closed captioning to increase accessibility. These factors make it important, but the process of adding it can be complex. Closed captioning software offers an easy solution. The following are the five best picks, with the pros and cons of each:

YouTube

Believe it or not, YouTube has over two billion users, representing roughly one-third of the internet. They provide closed captioning software to accommodate both those posting and watching videos.

Creating closed captions on YouTube is easy. After you upload your video, captioning options appear on the menu in the Creator Studio. You can enter a variety of languages or sounds, though you will need to do it manually.

YouTube captioning software doe features auto-generated captions, as well as auto-sync. While convenient, the downside is that the quality of speech recognition is lacking. As a result, accuracy can be an issue.

• Pros: Free, easy to use, and features auto-generated captions.
• Cons: Lack of accuracy.

Rev.com

Customers agree that it is hard to beat Rev when it comes to the closed captioning software. There are no downloads required with Rev captioning services. This means no compatibility issues, pop-ups, viruses, or other problems.

Rev generates 99% accurate captions for you, saving time and energy. You send your video files, URLs, or copy and paste a link from other platforms, such as YouTube or Vimeo. Rev’s captioning experts do all the work.

Within a matter of hours, Rev email you a caption file (like a .srt) to upload on your video. Rev’s captioning software also contains a video editor with an extensive array of tools. You can watch your video and make changes to your exact specifications. Compatible file formats allow for easy sharing and collaboration with others.

Want captions added directly to your videos? Rev now offers burned-in captions (open captions). Just check the “burned-in captions” box at checkout and you’ll receive a video with permanent, hard-coded captions added straight to your videos. Also available for foreign language subtitles!

Rev’s cost is only a $1.25 per minute-a bargain for extremely accurate captions and the amount of time you save. Rev captioning software is 99 percent accurate, too. We back all our work with a 100 percent guarantee.

• Pros: No download required. You can upload video files, paste URLs, or send links from other platforms. Experts create captions for you. Video editing tools allow for easy customization and collaboration with others. 99% accurate and all services 100 percent guaranteed. Fast turnaround, usually 12-24 hours.
• Cons: Cost is $1.25 per minute. (A small price to pay for custom captioning and the comprehensive tools you need.)

AHD Subtitles Maker

The AHD Subtitles Maker offers free captioning software for Windows users. It creates text-based subtitles easily and without the need for scripts. Once downloaded, it’s easy to style and trim texts with the video editor. It uses Google translating services to convert to different languages.

Unfortunately, the entire process of entering your captions is manual. This software is also limited in file formats, making it hard to sync with other devices. Compatibility is another big issue. This captioning software only works with Windows 7-10, Vista, and XP operating systems.

Closed Captioning Software Free

• Pros: Free and easy to use.
• Cons: Time consuming. Requires downloading and manual entering of captions. Difficult to sync and not compatible with different operating systems.

DivXLand Media Subtitler

The DivXLand program offers a variety of resources for video content producers. Compared to other captioning software, the company’s Media Subtitler is comprehensive and easy to use. A major plus is the price-it’s free-and the fact that it supports more than 30 subtitle formats. It also features an automatic caption time setting and correction feature.

Closed Captioning Software Programs

You do have to enter captions yourself though, and sync to the specific time code. The fact it is a download is another drawback, and it does not offer an OS version for Mac users.

• Pros: Free, easy to use, automatic caption timing set and correction features.
• Cons: Requires a download, no OS version for Mac, and have to enter captions yourself.

Jubler

When looking for free closed captioning software, Jubler is a straightforward option. This software allows you to create subtitles and captions. You can also convert, correct, and refine those already in your video content.

A visualized ‘audio wave’ lets you target different parts of the audio for text. Translations are available in a variety of style modes.

Closed Captioning Software

The drawbacks are similar to other free captioning software on the market. Jubler requires a download and you will need to enter the captions yourself. File formats, conversions, and collaboration options are all limited. On the plus side, there is a version for Mac users.

Closed Captioning Software For Videos

• Pros: Free, features a visualized audio wave for targeting, offers Mac version.
• Cons: Download required and you have to enter captions yourself. Limited file formats and collaboration options.