Do-it-yourself Captioning

Even if YouTube automatic captions aren’t up to UM standards, you can use YouTube to create a transcript or edit it. The process for doing this is listed below but only parts of it may be relevant to your situation.

Login and select “My Channel” as shown below.  Select the video you wish to transcribe.  Select “English” as the video language when a dialogue window opens that contains that question.

Select “Add new subtitles or CC” and “English.”  This is different than English (Automatic).

As shown below, you can then select “Transcribe and auto-sync." 

Start the video and type what you hear in the transcription window.  (Using the Transcription mode saves you from pressing Enter to move to new captioning “bubbles” – windows.)

Caution: Be sure to check the "pause video while typing" option in the bottom right.

Option 1 (recommended)

Save and download the .srt file. You may also be able to share it with us in your YouTube account that doesn't have an associated active email address.

Send the final transcript to the campus captionists:
• If this is for a course with an identified deaf or hard of hearing student, please contact Disability Services for Students.
• Otherwise, send the transcript to Accessible Technology Services in IT (http://www.umt.edu/it/services/accessible_IT/captioning.php).

You may also temporarily use the video until you receive the captions.

Option 2:

You can accept YouTube's synchronization (see image below).  If you use this option, please let ATS review the captions for you or compare them yourself with the timing standards (and English grammer rules).

Do I have to use YouTube?

Another simple way of transcribing is to listen to the video while typing what you hear into Word. (We recommend Word because of its speller checker.) You will need to learn your particular video players keyboard commands for starting and stopping. In addition, you’ll need to move between the video playing and the Word window. Finally, you’ll need to save it as a text file for synchronizing.