Video content is becoming incredibly popular across multiple platforms. These include social media apps, e-learning platforms, and platforms like YouTube, which has a growing user base. With this dominance of videos comes the need to improve their accessibility. Auto captioning is the best way to do this, but until a while ago, you would have to add captions manually.
Today, however, you have tools that automatically recognize speech inputs and convert them into captions and subtitles. AI and speech-to-text technology tools can automate this process today, saving marketers and filmmakers much time. This guide explains auto-captions and how they work.
What is Auto Caption?
The two sections below describe what is auto caption and how auto caption works. This will give you a good understanding of its key functions and how tools automate this process.
Definition of Auto Caption
Auto captioning is the process of converting the spoken word into a transcript to help increase accessibility. The written transcript is displayed on the screen in real-time or simultaneously as the content being spoken. This allows viewers to read the dialog and decipher other sounds as they occur in the video.
Why Auto Captions Matter
One key reason auto-captions are important is that they improve video accessibility. While subtitles translate a video into a different language, captions transcribe every verbal and nonverbal element. They help those with hearing impairments understand every aspect of the video. Accessibility for videos is also mandated by laws such as the ADA.
Another key reason why auto-captions are important is that they enable people to watch videos without sound. It has become a trend across social media platforms and mobile phones. Adding captions to videos thus enables people to consume the continents of a video without listening to the audio.
Captions can help people understand and comprehend videos better, especially for non-native speakers. This is especially true when they have a hard time following accents or the pace of the speech. The captions thus help them keep up. These accessibility standards are laid down in the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
How Does Auto Caption Work?
Auto-captioning is a simple four-step process. These steps include:
- Audio Input: The system processes the audio and its various elements.
- Speech-to-Text Conversion: Speech recognition models understand and convert the audio to text.
- Text Synchronization: The AI tool also synchronizes the captions with the video to ensure minimal discrepancies.
- Customization and Export: These tools also let you customize and edit the captions if needed before exporting them.
Step 1: Audio Input
Once you choose the right AI tools for caption generation, you upload the audio or video you want to transcribe. The tool then uses AI and speech recognition models to process the audio track on the video. It also analyzes speech patterns, the tone, and the language used.
Step 2: AI-Powered Speech-to-Text Conversion
Once the tool analyzes all the audio elements, it seamlessly automates converting speech to text. This automatic caption generation occurs in real-time and can also be edited and customized later.
Step 3: Text Synchronization
Besides merely transcribing the audio, these tools also synchronize the text with the timeline of the audio. This ensures that each sentence has its caption appear on the screen simultaneously as it is spoken. This synchronization makes it easier for the viewer to follow the contents of the video without any discrepancies.
Step 4: Customization and Export
Most tools also allow for customizing auto captions in videos. You can adjust the font, size, and weight, as well as the placement and timing. This ensures one caption does not overlap with the next, affecting the viewer experience.
Once you have customized and edited the caption down to the last detail, you can easily export it. You can typically do so in formats like SRT and VTT or directly embed it in the video.
5 Benefits of Auto Captioning
Auto captioning offers a range of benefits, some of which are described below.
Saves Time and Effort
The first benefit of using AI-powered speech-to-text tools is that they help save time and effort. Imagine having to manually caption an hour-long video, only to edit and customize it afterward. The process would take hours. Auto captioning tools can caption the entire video in a few minutes.
Improves Accessibility
Another benefit is improving video accessibility with auto-captions. Captions cater to those with hearing impairments who need text to understand a video. Besides the spoken words, captions also describe sound effects, background noises, and non-verbal utterances.
WebAIM categorized web pages and identified the average number of errors in each as part of a comprehensive study. Government websites, on average, had 35.7 errors. Social media sites had 40.9 errors, while educational sites had 48.3 errors.
Enhances Engagement
Captions have been known to help enhance video engagement, retaining viewers for longer durations. Further, captions become critical to keeping them engaged, considering how many people watch videos without sound.
Boosts SEO and Discoverability
Search engines cannot index videos. As a result, captions play a crucial role in informing the search engine what a video is about. This helps the search engine list your video as a potential result when a user searches for something relevant. This, in turn, boosts the discoverability of the video.
Supports Multilingual Audiences
Captions also support multilingual audiences who may not understand the language the video is spoken in. The captions help them understand the video rather than alienating them entirely. This is another way in which auto-captions help improve accessibility.
Top Tools for Auto Captioning
Here are five of the best-automated captioning tools you can use:
- Transkriptor: This AI-powered speech-to-text tool automates caption generation for videos.
- YouTube Auto Caption: This free tool generates captions for your YouTube videos.
- Rev: Rev offers both automated and human transcription options for video captions.
- VEED.io: This is an online video editing tool with an automated captioning feature.
- Kapwing: Kapwing is an intuitive platform for video editing and auto-captioning.
1. Transkriptor: AI-Powered Auto Captioning
Transkriptor is an AI-powered speech-to-text tool that you can use to transcribe videos, meetings, interviews, and more. Its transcription abilities also make it one of the best speech-to-text caption generators.
Transkriptor can transcribe audio to text in over 100 languages. This helps you improve video accessibility and reach a global audience. Its intuitive interface makes it ideal for content creators, educators, and businesses needing accurate, customizable captions at scale.
Key Features
- Multi-Language Support: Transkriptor supports captioning in 100+ languages, making it ideal for businesses with global audiences.
- Multiple Export Options: You can easily export your edited captions in various formats like SRT, PDF, and TXT.
- Editing and Customizing: Once the tool generates the captions, you can edit and customize them to ensure they are perfectly synchronized with the video.
2. YouTube Auto Caption
If you or your brand has a YouTube channel on which you upload videos, you likely use YouTube Studio to manage your channel. YouTube Studio also offers an auto caption tool that can automatically generate captions for your videos.
However, unlike Transkriptor, auto-captioning on YouTube has a key downside. It requires you to transcribe the video separately. You will then have to upload the transcript file so it can caption your videos.
Key Features
- Automatic Captions: Once you upload a transcript file, YouTube automatically converts it to captions for your video.
- Supports Manual Edits: You can manually edit your captions to ensure they are accurate and synchronized with your video.
- Supports Multiple Languages: YouTube also supports captioning in multiple languages to help you cater to a global audience.
3. Rev
Rev is a well-known speech-to-text tool that also offers human and auto-captioning features. It offers human captions in English and Spanish, while its auto-captioning feature supports 37 languages. Rev also has an intuitive interface that allows you to edit and customize your AI captions. This ensures they are accurate and meet the visual style of your brand. If you run a business that needs highly accurate captions for professional content, Rev is a great option to consider.
Key Features
- Fast AI-Generated Captions: Rev makes the process of generating AI captions quick, helping businesses and creators save time.
- Upgrade to Human-Reviewed Captions: Rev also gives you the option to upgrade to human captioning. This increases the accuracy of your captions.
4. VEED.io
VEED is an AI captioning software for videos that can generate captions with 98.5% accuracy. The tool automatically generates captions. It allows you to manually upload a file in formats like SRT, VTT, and TXT. You can also translate your captions into different languages to improve accessibility for global audiences.
Key Features
- Automatic Caption Generation: VEED used speech-to-text AI to automatically generate accurate captions for your videos.
- Customization: You can customize the font style, size, and color to match the visual theme of your brand.
- Burning Options: VEED also lets you burn or embed the captions directly onto the video before exporting it.
5. Kapwing
Kapwing is another AI captioning software for videos that allows you to edit your captions to perfection. It offers a range of built-in styles that you can choose from. Additionally, you can animate your captions with multiple professional effects and format them for different social media platforms.
Key Features
- AI-Powered Captions: Kapwing uses AI to automatically generate captions that you can also manually edit.
- Multiple Export Formats: You can export your captions in multiple formats, including SRT and VTT.
- Customization: You can also customize your captions to integrate them with your brand theme seamlessly.
How to Create Auto Captions with Transkriptor
Here is how you can use an AI captioning software like Transkriptor to create auto captions:
- Upload Your Video or Audio File: Upload the file you want to caption using multiple import options.
- Generate Auto Captions: Use the subtitle option to automatically generate captions for your video or audio file.
- Edit and Customize Captions: Transkriptor also lets you edit and customize your captions to fine-tune them.
- Export Your Captions: You can export your captions in different formats, including SRT, PDF, TXT, etc.
- Embed or Upload Your Captions: You can embed the captions to your videos on YouTube or Vimeo. You can even upload them separately.
Step 1: Upload Your Video or Audio File
The first step is to upload your video or audio file. You can do so for files in different formats, including MP3, MP4, or WAV. You can also add a link to a YouTube video or upload a video from the cloud. You can also upload a video from your device's internal storage.
Step 2: Generate Auto Captions
Once you upload a video, you can select the “Subtitle” option to generate captions. The tool will process the file and take you to the next window. Here, the captions will also be separated based on the speaker.
Step 3: Edit and Customize Your Captions
Once you access your captions, you can edit them to remove any inaccuracies. You can even customize the font, timing, formatting, and so on to ensure it perfectly syncs with your video. This will also ensure that one caption does not overlap with the next.
Step 4: Export Your Captions
Once you have edited and formatted your captions, you can export them in different formats, including SRT, PDF, and TXT. This allows you to save the caption file on your device to embed into your video at any point.
Step 5: Embed or Upload Your Captions
If you are uploading a video to YouTube, you can upload the file to caption your videos automatically. You can also use the file to embed the captions to your video so they are burned in.
Conclusion
Real-time captioning solutions have made captioning videos much more efficient and stress-free. They use AI and speech-to-text technology to decipher spoken words and transcribe them. They help improve video accessibility and global reach and offer caption customization features.
Among the various auto caption tools discussed in this guide, Transkriptor stands out as one of the best options. It provides auto-captions with 99% accuracy and lets you translate them into 100+ languages. This helps you reach a truly global audience, improving discoverability. Try it out for free today to experience how it can streamline your workflows.