Converting from one subtitle format to another is as simple as writing this one-liner: ffmpeg -i caption.srt caption.vtt The video player on UiO prefers VTT, so I often have to convert between these two formats.įortunately, FFmpeg comes to the rescue (again).

Both are supported by YouTube, while Twitter prefers SRT (although I still haven’t been able to upload one such file successfully). I have found that SRT (SubRip) and VTT (Web Video Text Tracks) are the two most common formats. Various services and platforms support at least 25 different subtitle formats. I typically use YouTube for all my public videos in English and UiO’s service for material in Norwegian and with multiple people.

YouTube has a nice window for adding/editing subtitles. It also has a friendly GUI where you can go through and check the text and align it with the audio. It has machine listening built in that works quite well for one person talking in English. YouTube offers a more streamlined approach for videos uploaded to their service. I typically do that in a text editor while checking the video. It is pretty ok but does require some manual cleanup. The nice thing about that service is that it supports both English and Norwegian and two people talking. At UiO, we have a service called Autotekst that will create a subtitle text file from an audio recording. There are numerous ways of doing this, but I usually rely on some machine listening service as the first step these days. I guess that having subtitles also helps search engines find your content more efficiently, which may lead to better dissemination of the content. There are also times when you may want to only watch some content without listening, for example, if you don’t have headphones available in a public setting. However, the sound will usually be off, so without subtitles, it is impossible to hear what is said. On Twitter, for example, videos will play automatically when you hover over them. The main reason is that people that have problems hearing the content can read.Īlso, for people that can hear sound in the video, it is helpful to have subtitles available. In fact, at UiO, it is now mandatory to add subtitles to all videos we upload to the university web pages. Firstly, adding subtitles is essential from an accessibility point of view. I didn’t think much about subtitles previously but have become increasingly aware of their importance.

YouTube supports turning on and off the subtitles (CC button).

Youtube how to use exiftool gui