Hello: this is Norm Coombs from EASI. Finally the technical problems are fixed, and I’ll turn the mic over to Susanne Mistric.

 

thank you I apologize for the delay. I was really excited about this content and it figures those things happen on the worst days. Today we are going to talk about YouTube captioning from start to finish. Because in the handful of years that some type of transcription and captioning has been available through YouTube it has heightened awareness and it is really improving the accessibility of video across the board.

I think more than anything it has really raised awareness of individuals of how important captions are and how useful they really are to all of us for many reasons.

And so today we are going to start in on um a couple of important elements of YouTube because I believe that with the methods I am going to talk about today that anyone ‑‑ even technology new person would be able to use this user friendly system and create captions for the videos they create. Today we are going to specifically address videos that belong to you because that's what you are able to caption in the actual YouTube interface. Later we will talk about videos that you use, but don't have direct access to.

Today we are going to talk about the YouTube interface and so, we are going to start in YouTube and finish in YouTube for the most part here. You have two options really. You can upload a video or you can wait for the auto transcript as your starting point or you can edit that and adjust the caption timing. Now, not so long ago maybe that was not a viable solution because you didn't get a baseline of accuracy with the auto transcriptions. It had to start somewhere and thank goodness it did because it has progressed in leaps and bounds. We are now um able to make great progress and with a few tips and tricks I'm going to suggest I think you will find that you can have really good success with at least a starting point using the auto transcripts.

I can get at least 80 percent accuracy. You want to have 98 percent accuracy. Can you hear me? Okay great all right. You want to have at least 98 percent accuracy ideally. Greg, I am glad you can hear. Um, but 80 percent is a good starting point. I uploaded a video that was three minutes long this week as I was preparing some extra little screen shots for this presentation and I had about 96 percent accuracy out of the gate. Um, I tried to make some special ‑‑ do some special things to get as accurate as possible and I will tell you about those now.

Um, the second option I will touch on that quickly first, you can upload a video and create your own transcript in YouTube and use the auto sync feature that YouTube offers and adjust the captioning. So you can do that if you are really meticulous, but sometimes the auto sync transcript will work just fine. So our disability support gets very busy at the beginning of the semester, so they are happy with the auto syncs they get using the transcripts.

So we are going to start about getting started. Anything else that has to do with computers when your goal is to get an accurate auto transcript from YouTube it is garbage in and garbage out. If you are using ‑‑ if you have a computer that doesn't have a great sound card and you are using a microphone like this that does not have USB instead of the little connecters that the 3.5 that depends on the sound card in the computer, you are starting with a penalty from the very beginning. You are just not going to get good quality sound with something like this. When I started researching this the tools that I purchased to practice with and to experiment with so that I could recommend a good headset microphone averaged about $90.

Now, you can get a good USB headset microphone that will give you good quality audio for about 25 or 30. So I will show you a range of six different microphones that I use and recommend. Most of them are not new. I am telling you the price and this is about the price I paid so for most of them with the exception of my um desktop microphones probably cheaper now, but I put the exact um model numbers because these are ones that I use all of the time that I do recommend. Again, I encourage you if you are going to do this and want good audio results start with good tools.

So, I like ‑‑ because I have a few little tricks I use. I like to use a Mono headset it is one ear. I have several of those are listed. One is $45.00 and one is $50. They are very good quality USB microphones and they are both actually recommended by Nuance and Dragon naturally speaking. It is not the highest Dragon rating, but it is very close to the highest rating. So for a reasonable amount ‑‑ your time is worth this investment.

I would encourage you to start on your captioning journey with a good headset microphone you are going to use to create your videos and transcripts if you are going to use any type of speech headset. So both of these are USB one is $50 one is $40. So all four sets have done the job very well for me, I can recommend all of them. I may have stepped up my tools a bit, so if you want to bump up on your quality. The blue Nessie adaptive does a lot of the correcting for you within it.

So if you are doing audio that you are uploading and transcribing that's a great tool. So my favorite is the Blue Yeti Triple Capsule Array. So I get great accuracy with this. First of all, we are going to start out before we even create your videos and upload it to YouTube making sure we start out with quality tools. So the price of these desktop microphones range between $100 to $125. I actually got the Nessie on sale for $80.

In general you see it on sale for $80. So we have a professional version for more. Also I recommend all six of these microphones that I am showing you today as things to have in your toolbox even if you are a beginner starting on the captioner journey.

So you have to have the tools you need to get started. Garbage in and garbage out. You are wanting to have quality video you want to upload if you are looking for the most accurate results possible when the YouTube gets the auto transcription. If you are using a tool like this you never want to use the automatic upload to YouTube because it does its own compressing. So you don't have to do anything at all if you are uploading to YouTube because they have a special way that they do it that works great. I have listed here the audio recommendations.

I won't go into the technical element of that now, again you want to make sure that you are uploading quality audio and not compressed because as we know compression of audio video and images compromises the quality in many cases. So in this case we can't afford to do that.

So we are uploading the best quality audio that we possibly can. So we start out and you can't create captions without a transcript. So in YouTube you really have two transcription options:  Auto transcribe and manual transcribe. I will briefly touch on both of those. After the video uploads to YouTube with auto transcribe you wait for YouTube to transcribe and sync the transcript so it becomes captioned. So you upload the video without any type of transcript and YouTube does its best guess and does the best it can creating a transcript, then it syncs it to the video.

So that's what we call auto transcribe. So sometimes it happens quickly and sometimes it takes a great length of time. I never try to upload videos longer than ten to 12 minutes at the very most. Still occasionally that takes a while. If you are uploading videos longer than that it will take a considerable greater amount of time.

If you are uploading a video with multiple speakers or something where the audio environment is questionable, you really can't expect great results there. They are getting better, but environments like that have not gotten into the situation where auto transcribe is a viable option for an individual who is working hard to upload quality audio it is definitely a great tool and it is a great time saver.

So the second option is manual transcribe. So built in to YouTube you have an environment conducive to creating your own transcript. So there are a couple of ways to do that. The good ole' fashioned way is to open up a page and start to type. So first we are going to start with automatic transcription process from start to finish. So first of all, after you have uploaded the video you are going to click on the CC subtitle closed caption option in your video managing YouTube.

So that will open ‑‑ hopefully. That will open up the manage subtitles and captioning area. So you are going to check to the right of the actual video to see if your automatic transcription is ready. So we can see in this case this is what it looks like if it is ready. So it has a bar that helps you to see when you have several to keep track of which is yours. This tells me that that automatic transcription is ready for whatever direction I choose to take it in. It is automatically synced with the video.

You don't have to do anything else to make sure it is synced. It is not necessarily published so that other people have access to it. So your transcript is always synced and with the time code added so you can call it captioned. So the automatic transcription automatically becomes captions in YouTube.

Okay, then you click on a little button in the top right corner that says edit and that's where you get your editing environment and you get a look at exactly what you have available. Now my process when I go in is I automatically go over to the left where you see the little drop down box and I am in the habit of downloading my SRT file. So that's just a good generic already time coded easy to work with and convert to other formats if I need to version of that file. So I stick that in my records folder. I like to keep of how available it is. So technology messes up as you all know. You can lose track of it or accidently delete them.

So I download a copy of the automatic transcription slash closed captioned file. So I click on the SRT and follow the process. So slightly greyed out, but vaguely you can see a very dynamic environment here. We have the video right in front of us, to the left we have a very easy to look at ‑‑ even though it is dimmed here ‑‑ user friendly area where the transcript is presented as individual captions. And then the newest addition that I just really love you will notice right below the video you see a visual representation of your audio. So you can see the audio waves above that you have a visual representation of the captions. This is such a handy tool. I will talk more about it later.

This is where we sort of get an idea you can look enough to see right here if that looks pretty accurate. You can jump on it or decide to keep it right here because I don't have to do too terribly much to that and it is not a very long video. So I will complete the process start to finish right here in YouTube. So this is about the point where I decide that if I upload a lot of videos that I need to make available to a small group of people ‑‑ I try never to make anything published that is never captioned or not seen captioning.

So occasionally I have to, but I always view the captions first because with this auto transcripts occasionally you get some configurations of words and phrases that can be construed as offensive. There have been entire videos made of this, but um it's a good idea or best practice to go ahead and get in the habit of viewing the video even if you can't get to finishing it or fine tuning ‑‑ make sure what captions are there are accurate enough even if not perfect to represent your content positively and they are not offensive.

I have seen some offensive things unfortunately, I don't think intentionally, but it turned out that way. So here is where I can jump into the automatic transcription and I can begin to edit right there. I can start on the left side. I can edit my text and how my captions are actually configured. So that's generally my workflow and then I go over to the timing area and rather than have to click around with tiny little numbers that are easier to run amuck.

I can easily grab these chunks that are each individual caption and place it where I need to place it. In many cases I don't have to hear the video. I can guess where things start and stop enough to get a start on something. If for some reason I don't have a headset, I can see where the quiet places are and I can start to get things in order. So this environment is user friendly I believe that it is easy so anybody can jump in and work on it. It is very efficient.

I think it is lots of fun. So now we are going to talk about manual transcription. Just a very little bit about it because it is pretty cut and dry. Do it yourself manual transcript in YouTube. So, you don't have to wait for the auto transcript. You can go into the captioned area and you can choose to listen to the audio which will play until you start to type and it will pause until you stop typing. You can listen and type and listen and type and listen and type and there are keyboard shortcuts to make you more efficient.

Unfortunately, the nifty foot petal that I use to start and stop doesn't work with the web based tools, but rumor has it at some point it will work with YouTube. So now you have keys that help you with typing in here. So the audio automatically starts and stops when you start and stop typing. So that's very helpful as well. So some very exciting news, Dragon naturally speaking actually works inside this environment in YouTube. Yes, you heard me right. You can use Dragon to create the transcript.

Next week when I go into more technical tools ‑‑ I'm going to tell you and show you some videos of my process here. I have sort of an odd little method because I don't type very fast with my arthritis. I know about every place where I can use Dragon and you might be surprised at some of the places where it works. I am thrilled it works right here. You have to do some work arounds so you don't step on your toes while you are working with the audio. I have steps to help you so that doesn't happen.

So for those that type 100 words or something, so this is a great starting point for you. So you can type and listen and type and listen. Me because of my arthritis, I don't type that fast, but when I need to do this I can work with Dragon and that helps me to be more efficient too. I have not tested it with the new Mac version. I have the brand new version of the PC and the Mac Dragon. Both are excellent out of the box.

I am just getting around to experimenting with how I can push them to the limit. So here is one of the ways that I can confirm or push the new version of Dragon naturally speaking. I can dictate into the transcript box in YouTube captions. So that's great news. It is very accurate. Okay. I'm going to show you a process for adding a transcript created or edited outside of YouTube.

If you are like me when you have to caption something ‑‑ especially somebody else's you hope that perhaps a transcript or a script that they use to create an instructional video is available or if an instructor gives me ‑‑ not related to YouTube most of the time because I can't upload it. If I get academic content that needs to be transcribed and captioned the first thing I will do is look and see if somebody has transcribed it at least even if it is not captioned. It is important to know how to add a transcript added or created outside of YouTube.

So I am picky about how captions go, sometimes the YouTube interface slows me down. I will take the auto transcribed offering from YouTube and download the SRT file. I will either convert it into just a text document and then do my edits, or I will pull it into a captioning software. My two captioning choices that I will talk about at the end one is for the Mac and one for the PC. One is free and one is not.

So if you are doing a lot of captions it is worth it to do it that way because it speeds up the workflow. When you are starting out there is no way to do it all in YouTube. So different things work with different solutions. So adding a transcript and created or edited outside of YouTube. So first you are going to go into your video manager in your YouTube channel and you will see the subtitles and CC button.

You will see a drop down list and click on the edit the little area beside the edit and you will see CC and when you click on that you will see a page with a pretty blue button that says add new captions or subtitles and next you will click on that. Next you are going to click whatever language option you need. In my case it is English. You will get a pop up that might be intimidating if you were not expecting it, it says click the button to overwrite existing subtitles.

You want to click on overwrite. I encouraged you when you first went into YouTube and probably before you do this at some point you have the original captions that YouTube provided. So you probably have a copy of these that you are getting ready to overwrite if you desperately needed them at the end. I do save all of that stuff. You do click overwrite.

So then you will have a screen pop up and you will have three options. Upload a file, which is what we are going to do. Then the next file is transcribe and auto sync is when you type in the actual text box. A little more advanced process that we are not going to talk about right now is creating the transcript and captions at the same time. So once you build your skills it is a great way to do it. It is really efficient if you have audio that won't work well with other transcription.

So you can jump right in and create new subtitles and you have that window and you can do both things at once. It is great. So in this case we are uploading a text file transcript that we have created that we are going to let YouTube sync.

So we are clicking on upload the file and then we are locating the file on your desktop and we are making sure we select transcript. The difference between a transcript and subtitle file the transcript is the audio spoken and any important sounds in the background and the subtitle file includes the timestamp. So that's the difference between the two.

So sometimes you might upload the subtitle file at graduation I created a subtitle file for graduation in another format because I make a DVD and then I convert it to SRT and they upload the graduation video to YouTube and I use the subtitles file to upload the already coded with the timestamp audio to YouTube.

So very handy. They just really made this slick and easy to use. Of course, you are going to click upload there. After the file is uploaded ‑‑ okay I duplicated this on the last one I was going to tell you to choose the file. Now the file is showing up after you have chosen it, in this case it is a text file, this is where you click upload. Here is an example and it is kind of small. So here is an example again of the text file that I just uploaded and now put it in this box it is very familiar.

So this is the box where we create our own transcript that we type in. So I showed you the screen shot of this. So it will appear here. You can use Dragon in here. So you can include set timings and you are going to go away for a little while especially if the video is longer than five or six or eight minutes. It takes a good amount of time to sync it.

You have to consider here the accuracy is usually very good in most situations even if the audio is not great. If you have multiple speakers and a lot of noise and music in the background you will have to tweak it a little bit. You wouldn't have to tweak it if it was a simple speaker. So very frequently if you provide the transcript and if you let YouTube sync it you don't have to do anything else. That's what our disability support services does all of the time.

So that is a great solution and it is efficient. If it was for a ceremony or something where a lot of people watch in a public venue you probably want to go in and make it prettier. It used to be three lines and now it is just two lines and it is better. So it is going to have words where there are silent spaces and it doesn't do a great job of where it ends lines. So that's something when you go to tweak it you can decide how much time you have to put into getting it as perfect as possible.

Okay then it is going to say to add a transcript to YouTube. So this is when you know this will pop up. So you know that YouTube is in the process of syncing the video. So this is the draft. So this means that it won't be published. Now, it appears to me that if I don't go back and check it to approve it, if I go through this process and don't go back to publish something I have uploaded I think it automatically publishes it. It doesn't say it does that. I think it does.

I tried to go back and look at it and make sure it is doing a good job so that I allow publish. You will be ashamed to go through that work and not have it viewed. I think if you forget to do that ‑‑ in some cases at least ‑‑ YouTube automatically publishes the captions. Okay. Um now we are going to run through the process. We don't have a whole lot of time. I will go as long as I can until somebody stops me.

(LAUGHTER)  here is what you do. I sincerely believe this is a simple enough process that even the most timid technology person could um get a reasonably good result with what I am going to show you and have fun doing it. I think you should have fun when you are doing it regardless. So what we are going to simulate here is going into our channel and finding the automatic transcript and then first editing the text and the captions and then editing the timing. So let's start that ‑‑ helpful YouTube tips and tricks.

Here are the keyboard shortcuts I have provides here. So they don't seem like a big deal right now, but if you are captioning a whole bunch of stuff you will appreciate having these on a little three by five card right in front of you to take advantage of these shortcuts because they really do help with the workflow and they really do speed up the process.

So, first of all we have gone into our YouTube environment after uploading a video and we have waited for the audio ‑‑ the automatic transcript so the first thing we do is when you are going in and confirming the need for texting and timing edits, one day we won't have to do this at all. We are not there today, we probably have to do 80 percent less than when YouTube first introduced the process. It is not perfect enough that we don't have to do anything.

Occasionally you can get away with something if you absolutely have to. You have to be careful because it can inadvertently have rude phrases and you have things that don't make sense. So you don't have a professional image if you don't change those things. So we are going to click edit and I'm going to go to my first caption and you can see each one is um separated in a little chunk because it shows one line here it may actually be two lines when you view it on YouTube.

This is just very easy to work with like this. So, for example here there was a word at the end of the phrase that really didn't belong there. It belonged with the next line so I can very easily click inside of that caption and cut it and click inside of the other caption and paste it. So that's all I am doing right here.

So I am adjusting the subtitles and what the context I want in each subtitle and make corrections that I need to make. So I am fixing punctuation and adding capital letters and et cetera et cetera.

So as I said, it is really easy to pretty much copy and paste like you would in a Word document. You are clicking on where the thing is you want to move. So you are cutting it and clicking on it and pasting it. So it is very easy and anybody can do that. As I said, to create a new caption there is a phrase here in this particular pre‑made caption ‑‑ I want to split this into two because it makes more sense that way.

So what I have highlighted what you can see here is what I want to put in another caption that goes before this one. So I have highlighted the caption that I want a new caption to come before. Then I'm going to take that text that I have highlighted here and I'm going to cut it and I'm going to paste it into that cell at the very top to the left of the um square with the plus sign in the middle.

I will paste it into that, now because I have certain caption highlighted when I click the button to the right of the text box it will move that content into a caption just before the caption that is highlighted. Even though that sounds more confusing in words it is very easy once you get into that. So you want to break up the captions a little bit. Content them up and move them around to make more sense.

So each caption has a plus sign and an X sign. It is very easy to delete captions. When you want to add new captions, you paste them in the text box and boom they go right in front of the caption you have highlighted in the workflow. So that's easy peasy. I think I just got ahead of myself. So I said to paste a new caption and click on the caption text box plus sign.

So I want this caption to go into a new captioned cell that comes before the caption that is highlighted right now. So that happens just when I click the plus sign to the right of the new captioned text box. So that's down. So one thing that happens here so after you do that sometimes the highlight jumps around a little bit. So you have to take a look and see where it is before you proceed. So you don't want to end up moving things you don't want to move.

It is not a perfect world. It works pretty smoothly, but there is a couple of things where you get going fast that jump around. So you want to make sure that the highlighted text box is where you think it is. Keep an ion that. Then, after we have made sure that we have made all of the corrections that we need to punctuations and spelling, we have divided the captions up into ways that make sense ‑‑ there are guidelines.

Um, I am going to give access to the basic guidelines that are good to have as a model.

CAPTIONER:  End of captioning. Logging off it is 1:00 p.m.