YouTube Captioning with HyperTRANSCRIBE 1.6

If you have movies on YouTube that you'd like to caption, HyperTRANSCRIBE 1.6 adds support for the .SBV format which works perfectly with YouTube. If you don't have the video file locally, you need to download it from YouTube first. You do that from the Video Manager area in your Youtube account:

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Once you have the file you need to create a text file in the SBV format to go along with it. Here's a sample (*.SBV) caption file:

0:00:03.490,0:00:07.430
All right. So, let's begin.
This session is: Going Social

0:00:07.430,0:00:11.600
with the YouTube APIs. I am
Jeff Fisher,

0:00:11.600,0:00:14.009
and this is Johann Hartmann,
we're presenting today.

0:00:14.009,0:00:15.889

Screen shot of HyperTRANSCRIBE with Andy Griffith episode.To create a file like this with HyperTRANSCRIBE, you would start by hitting Command-D (or CTRL-D on a PC) to put in the time-code stamp. Then hit Shift-Return to play a 5 second segment of the video. It will automatically pause and wait for you to type. You can hit Shift-Spacebar to replay the same segment or Shift-Return to play the next 5 second segment. For readabilty, it's recommended to hit the Return key after a caption and then Command/CTRL-D to insert the next time code.

Looking at the screenshot at the right, you can see that HyperTRANSCRIBE's format does not exactly match the .SBV format illustrated above. Not to worry. Upon Exporting your file, you simply choose the .SBV format and HyperTRANSCRIBE takes care of the details and produces a file that looks like this:

00:00:00.000,00:00:05.000
OK. Ready?  Ready.  This

00:00:05.000,00:00:10.000
Are there rules for how a Pa should treat his son if he's a kid?

00:00:10.000,00:00:15.000
Uh...well..   Well of all the questions to come up with, if that don't take the cake

 

Then you upload the file in the Captions area of the YouTube Manager:

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Choose the file from your computer and you will be presented with this choice:

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Since our file includes time codes,  choose the Caption file option. Here's a link to the captioned YouTube sample (just the 3 first lines are captioned).

http://youtu.be/1k5kS_LQOj4

It is worth experimenting with the transcript file option since you can try it with virtually no additonal work. Simply Export another copy of the file as Plain Text and choose Don't Include when asked about the time codes. My experience with this option in YouTube has been hit or miss. The above link has a Transcript option that is accessed as shown below:

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You can toggle back and forth to see the difference. It would be great if worked, because it would save the additional keystrokes required to insert the time codes. Of course if you will be analyzing the transcripts with HyperRESEARCH, you will want the timecodes anyway. You may see an option to enable Automatic Captions. Try it for laughs if you like, but it's consistently useless in my experience.

Here's how the file looks when opened with HyperRESEARCH. Note that the hyperlinks allow you to jump instantly to that portion of the video (this also works when transcribing audio files).

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Happy Transcribing!