Sometimes you may need to add subtitles to a video. The use cases can be completely different. You may need to translate foreign subtitles or the full speech of the main characters when editing the video. Or you may need to localize video content and increase the reach of your target audience. In such cases, you cannot do without built-in subtitles.
This is especially important when uploading videos to YouTube. Having subtitles on a YouTube video is a great way to expand the geography of your subscribers and rank your channel high. By the way, with video subtitles, you can ensure the highest visibility of your video content on YouTube, as they are “read” by the platform as keywords and queries to match user searches. With the above thoughts in mind, it is no wonder that many video editors and producers wonder how to embed subtitles in videos of different formats and search for the most effective solutions.
Why should you add subtitles to your videos?
As we have already mentioned, video to text transcription contributes to the SEO promotion of the site. This simplifies data indexing, search engines can easily detect specific content and match it to users’ search queries. Thus, the user finds the target content and perceives it appropriately.
Creating subtitles for videos manually is a slow and laborious process, especially for long videos or webinars. In addition to extracting the subtitles, you need to make sure that they are perfectly in sync with both the video and the sound and that they do not cause confusion. On some social networks, like Facebook and Instagram, video content is turned off by default. In this case, adding subtitles to the video becomes even more important.
Working with subtitles can be easy
AI-powered automatic subtitle generators offer a quick solution to this problem, as they can generate subtitles for an entire video in just a few minutes. Do you want to know more about automatic subtitle generators? You have come to the right place! In this post, we will look at some of the best options to avoid manual work and automate the process.
Tools to create video subtitles in a few clicks
The technologies used to automatically generate subtitles for videos are still under development; the tools are constantly improving; bugs were constantly fixed and processes were streamlined. However, there are several solutions that will make the life of a video editor easier and worry-free.
Solution #1 – You can use automatic subtitles on YouTube
Video content creators running their YouTube channel can use the platform’s own speech recognition technology. That way I can generate subtitles automatically. The good thing about this solution is that there is no extra work for you to do: the subtitles will be available immediately after you upload a new video. This option is currently only available for some languages: Japanese, English, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Russian, Korean, French, Italian, and Dutch.
The process of automatically generating subtitles for YouTube videos is quite simple. You just need to upload the video file to the platform and activate the “Subtitles” option in the “Video Editor” view after the upload is complete. When you are done, you will need to select the language of the video so that the automatic function can recognize the language used in the video. It takes a few minutes for the tool to “read” the video text and embed it into the video image. In case the subheading text needs fixing, you can go to each sentence and edit the spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Solution #2: Facebook Auto Captions Feature
You can also add captions to media files posted to Facebook. This caption generator is currently only available in US English to advertisers in the US and Canada. But it can still be very useful for Facebook users who often upload videos to their profiles. To enable the instrument, you need to go to the Facebook home page or your profile page and click on the “Photo / Video” option located in the “Create Post” menu. Select the video you want to upload to your page, type the video title or add a video description comment, and click the “Share” button after uploading the video to the system.
At this point, the video will be displayed without subtitle text. To add it to the video, simply click the “Generate” button at the top of the post and activate the Caption option from there. The system allows you to preview the newly generated video subtitles to make sure there are no errors. Then you can make all the necessary changes and click the “Save to video” button so that the ad is displayed in the correct way.
Solution #3 – Use automated audio-to-text programs
If you don’t intend to post the video to YouTube or Facebook and are looking for a more advanced solution, consider using specialized subtitle software here. Many programs have the option to translate audio to text and do not require any special skills from a video editor to add subtitles to a video clip.
The first thing these programs can do is create a timestamp for the subtitles (timing). It takes time for the text to appear on the screen according to the events of the video. Some of the programs can extract time directly from the video; others simply implement the labeling and editing functionality of the overlay text. Time-adjusted subtitles can be displayed in different fonts, with different character sizes, etc.
Traditionally, subtitles appear at the bottom of the screen. However, some programs allow you to place subtitles anywhere on the screen just to create the perfect video image. The fonts and color of the characters can also be customized which is another feature of professional video editing software.
Final word!
While it’s quite easy to generate subtitles for the videos you share on YouTube or Facebook, some other speech recognition technologies are useful for video editors and producers. You can always look for professional video captioners and use professional text-to-speech technologies when creating video content for your business website, social media, or any other purpose.
Categories: How to
Source: HIS Education