Caption This! Become a Pro in Video Captioning and Subtitles

Captions and subtitles

[Remark: This course contains manually created/timed captions in English and German. Feel free to use this feature to follow along the course contents. Deaf and hearing impaired people as well as people whose second language is English (or German) can follow this course without any problems.]

You may know the closed caption icon from YouTube or Netflix. Captions are an important tool in video production to make videos and even entire movies or TV shows accessible to a larger - possibly even international - audience. Deaf and hearing impaired people can easily follow and understand your videos through subtitles. You help foreign language learners to learn a new language. Maybe you have even used subtitles in your favorite TV show yourself to improve your foreign language skills - especially if English is not your first language.

In this course I will teach you a lot about subtitles and captions. You will not only learn how to create and edit subtitles with free offline and online editors, but also some theoretical background on formats, guidelines to create great captions, transcriptions and even translations. This video course contains nine sections:

IntroductionIn this section I present the course contents and give you a quick introduction to captions.
TheoryThis section gives you some nice to have background knowledge on the difference between subtitles, closed captions and open captions as well as an overview on the most important subtitle formats. If you are already at an intermediate or expert level, you may skip this sections. Beginner, however, should definitely take a look at those videos.
GuidelinesThis is one of the most important sections. Many courses and videos teach about how to create captions. However, a lot of them fail to explain how to design great captions that are easy to follow and that do not distract from the video content. Captions should support the viewer in his understanding of your video contents. While well designed captions add value to a video, bad captions may even disturb the viewer. I explain some of the most important guidelines to you and even show you a short example of good and bad captions. Please to not skip this section, even if you want to start creating captions right away.
PreparationThis section deals with transcriptions. Do you think you can create captions directly without a script? Maybe that will work. But maybe it won't. A transcription of the video can help you later on. Keep in mind that this is not an in-depth course about transcriptions. I just want to introduce you to the topic of transcriptions and show you some tricks, software and hardware to use.
The Offline WayThis section is the one you were all waiting for. In this section I teach you how to use offline tools like Subtitle Edit or Aegisub to create captions for your videos. To benefit the most, I advise you to also download these tools and try them out yourself. Create some captions for your own videos to train your captioning skills.
The Subtitle TrackAfter you have created your own captions in the last section, this section shows you how to use subtitles offline. I will explain how to embed subtitles into MP4 and MKV video files as a track and how to use captions with the VLC media player. This section is relevant for you, if you want to work with videos and captions offline. If you want to create subtitles for your online videos, take a look at the next section, instead.
The Online WayThis section presents different websites and online editors to create, edit and upload closed captions to your videos. I will explain why different formats are important and show you ways to use captions for your YouTube videos and Udemy courses. You need this section for any online videos, because websites cannot read the subtitle tracks you may have created in the sixth section.
TranslationThrough captions you can appeal to an international audience and grow your community over time. This section presents processes and tools for an easy and cheap translation of your videos.
The EndIn this last video I recap what you have learned in the course. Congratulations on coming this far.

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What's inside

Learning objectives

Create closed captions and open captions
Edit subtitles and captions with software and online tools
Improve your captions with respect to many guidelines
Transcribe your videos for an easier captioning process

Use captions online with youtube and udemy or offline with the vlc media player
Integrate captions into your videos as a track
Translate your videos using captions

Create closed captions and open captions
Edit subtitles and captions with software and online tools
Improve your captions with respect to many guidelines
Transcribe your videos for an easier captioning process
Use captions online with youtube and udemy or offline with the vlc media player
Integrate captions into your videos as a track
Translate your videos using captions

Syllabus

You will get an introduction about captions and subtitles. I will show you where and how subtitles are used. Furthermore I show you a possible workflow for creating captions.

Hi, I am Felix, your instructor. I use this lesson to quickly introduce myself.

This lesson gives you an overview about the sections and lessons of this course. It shows my idea behind the course.
I tell you, which lessons are the most important and which you might even skip, if you just want to start subtitling.

What are captions? This lesson is a definition so that all of you know what exactly we are talking about.

In which areas of application are subtitles actually used? Which countries use subtitles and which prefer dubbing?
This lessons shows several examples of the various ways to use subtitles in practice.

Depending on what kind of video you are working on, the captioning process might differ a little. I show you a possible workflow to ensure the quality of your captions.

You will learn the benefits and differences of subtitles and captions. You can name, read and understand different subtitle formats. Additionally, you get to know live-captioning.

Overview of the section Theory.

I present the most important benefits of subtitles and tell you why adding captions to your company videos and tutorials is important.

Subtitles and captions are actually not the same thing. We talk about the little differences and distinguish between open captions and closed captions.

There are a lot of different subtitle formats. Many of them look the same, but some work a little different.
Using an example, I show you SRT, VTT and SSA/ASS subtitles and explain their main characteristics.

Did you ever see a live show with subtitles? This lesson explains how manually created subtitles are fed into the stream of a live TV broadcast.

Everybody can create captions after a quick introduction. But in this section, you will learn how to create great and easy to follow captions that benefit the viewer.

Overview of the section Guidelines.

You will learn about spelling, grammar and punctuation in captions. Furthermore, we talk about numbers.

After this lesson you know the main style guidelines for captions. How long should a single line be? Why is there even a maximum number of characters? How long should a subtitle be displayed? You can evaluate your own and foreign subtitles and know how to improve them.

Did you believe me, when I said that subtitles could be bad or even annoying? In this lesson I show you an example of bad and good subtitles. We discuss the most common errors when creating captions and how to easily improve them.

This section is about transcriptions. You learn when it is useful to transcribe a video, how to transcribe and what to use the transcription for.

Overview of the section Preparation.

What is a transcription? This lesson is a definition.

After this lesson you know when it is helpful to transcribe your videos. You can assess on your own if you need a transcription or if you can just start with the captions immediately.

Sometimes you have a caption file, but just need the text contents. In this lesson you learn easy ways to convert captions to plain text.

All you need for a transcription is a video player and a writing software like MS Word. However, it is easier with specialized transcription software. In this lesson you get to know useful hardware and software for transcriptions.

Learn how to create subtitles with offline tools like Subtitle Edit or Aegisub.

Overview of the section The Offline Way.

It is possible to create captions with nothing but a text editor and a video player. However this is very tedious and should never be done. In this lesson I show you why specialized captioning software is very helpful for creating captions.

Subtitle Edit is a free subtitle editor. I show you how to download the tool, how to create captions and how Subtitle Edit supports you during the creation process.

Do you have a subtitle file, but need to adjust the timings of the subtitles? I show you an easy way using Subtitle Edit.

There are many different subtitle formats. For an MP4 file you need a different format than for Udemy. I show you an easy way to convert subtitles using Subtitle Edit so that you do not have to manually adjust all timecodes.

This lesson explains how to use Aegisub, another freeware especially used to create subtitles in the format Advanced SubStation Alpha (.ssa/.ass).

Information 2021-08-14: The Aegisub homepage seems to be offline. I have changed the link to different website from which you can download Aegisub.

There is a lot of tools I did not discuss in the previous lessons. I give you an overview about other freeware and paid tools.

After this section you know how to embed a subtitle file as a track in MP4/MKV an how to use subtitles with the VLC media player. You will also learn about open captions.

Overview of the section The Subtitle Track.

You learn how to integrate captions into your MKV video container using MKVToolNix.

You learn how to integrate captions into your MP4 video container using HandBrake.

The VLC media player is one of the best known video players. This lesson shows you different ways to use subtitles with the VLC media player. We also take a look at the settings.

What is the difference between open captions and closed captions? You will also learn areas of application for open captions as well as different ways to create them.

Do you have a video with one or more subtitle tracks, but only need the captions? In this lesson we extract captions from a video using Subtitle Edit.

You learn how to create captions using online tools and platforms.

Overview of the section The Online Way.

You probably have already seen the CC-icon under YouTube-videos, which tells you that the video has closed captions for at least one language. In this lesson I show you the subtitle editor of YouTube as well as different ways to use captions with YouTube.

UPDATE 31.07.2020: In this video I briefly showed you the feature to let your Community create captions for you. Unfortunately, YouTube just mentioned in a newsletter that this feature will not be available anymore after the end of September 2020.

As one of the largest video course platforms Udemy also allows instructors to put captions in their videos. I show you how students can use captions on Udemy and what instructors have to do to have captions on their course videos.

Cooperative subtitling is a term that describes platforms where multiple users can caption a video. I show you how to use platforms like rev.com and amara.org.

Did you know that you can download captions for basically any YouTube video? I show you an online tool to do so.

Translation - Appeal to Your International Audience

Overview of the section Translation.

This video is a motivation. It shows you several reasons to use captions for translating your videos.

This lesson shows how to best proceed when translating a video using captions.

Find a short description of some of the most popular online translation tools in this video.

The End - What Did You Learn?

This is the last lesson of this video course. It summarizes what you have learned in the previous eight sections.

Congratulations on completing my course Caption This! Become a Pro in Video Captioning and Subtitles.

Good to know

Know what's good

, what to watch for

, and possible dealbreakers

Covers best practices that are common in online video publishing

Covers transcription techniques and software

Includes lessons that explain industry-standard captioning guidelines

Presents methods for adding captions to videos using both online and offline tools

Suitable for beginners who want to learn the basics of video captioning

Suitable for intermediate learners who already have some video-editing experience

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Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in Caption This! Become a Pro in Video Captioning and Subtitles with these activities:

Review basic video editing concepts

Show steps

Brush up on the basics of video editing, such as trimming, cutting, and transitions, to refresh your memory and prepare for this course.

Browse courses on Video Editing

Show steps

Read through online tutorials or watch introductory videos on video editing.
Review notes or materials from previous video editing courses or workshops.
Practice basic editing techniques using free or open-source video editing software.

Explore video editing software features

Show steps

Familiarize yourself with the features and tools available in the video editing software you'll be using in this course, such as Subtitle Edit or Aegisub, to enhance your editing skills.

Browse courses on Video Editing Software

Show steps

Watch tutorials or read documentation on the specific video editing software.
Experiment with different features and settings to understand their effects on video editing.
Create a short practice video to apply your newfound knowledge.

Create practice subtitles

Show steps

Practice your subtitling skills by creating subtitles for short video clips or excerpts. This will help you develop fluency in using the software and improve the accuracy and quality of your captions.

Show steps

Select a short video clip or excerpt.
Transcribe the audio into text.
Create subtitles using video editing software or online tools.
Review and refine your subtitles for accuracy and readability.

One other activity

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Show all four activities

Develop a subtitling style guide

Show steps

Create a style guide that outlines your preferred subtitling conventions, such as font, size, timing, and placement, to ensure consistency and quality in your subtitling work.

Browse courses on Style Guide

Show steps

Research existing subtitling style guides and best practices.
Identify the specific requirements and preferences for your target audience.
Develop a set of guidelines that cover all aspects of subtitling.
Document your style guide in a clear and concise manner.

Career center

Learners who complete Caption This! Become a Pro in Video Captioning and Subtitles will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers: