Missing captions

[mworden]

Has anyone encountered this situation?

An instructor embeds several YouTube videos into their course. Some of the embedded videos display a CC and some don't, yet all of them have closed captioning if you go directly to YouTube. We have encountered this in several courses, with several instructors. I've experimented with embedding in different ways, but the results are always the same.

Message was edited by: Mark Worden

[christopher_phi · Accepted solution]

I have been looking into this some more and can definitely confirm that it is not a Canvas issue that the captions are not appearing, however there is a way that I believe Canvas could fix the problem.

At first I thought it was maybe somehow pulling in a variable from a setting on the video to indicate whether the button was shown in the embed code, but I couldn't see any difference between the two videos. You can actually duplicate the problem on the YouTube site by playing those two videos full screen:

8 Lessons Learned Video

• Youtube  standard player with Caption button
• Youtube full screen with Caption button

Best Practices Video:

• Youtube  standard player with Caption button
• Youtube full screen without Caption button (even though the video is captioned)

So something is obviously going on with YouTube, but I can't figure out what. Regardless, it is probably still worth reporting to Canvas as they may be able to embed the videos in a different way that does display the caption button for all videos.

Does anyone else have additional videos where the caption button doesn't show up they could share try try and identify what the difference is?

[christopher_phi]

I have never seen where the embedded video doesn't show the caption button, but here is a workaround that might help that should force the captions to play on the video. At the end of the URL in your embed code add the following: "&cc_load_policy=1".

If your embed code is:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TdDS6gVdI10" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Then you would change it to:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TdDS6gVdI10&cc_load_policy=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hopefully that will also bring the captioning button back!

[471e03c21da7287]

We have noticed the same issue that Mark notes. I tried to implement Christopher's work-around, but we aren't using iframes - we linked to the videos on a Canvas Page using the Link to URL button in the Rich Content Editor. Thus, our code looks like:

No Closed Captions in Canvas example:

<p><a id="" class="" title="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_lC-G8wJOk" target="">Meet Greg Wells</a></p>

Closed Captions in Canvas example:

<p><a id="" class="" title="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp4BG4Me7TU" target="">8 Lessons Learned from Teaching Online</a></p>

I tried adding &cc_load_policy=1 to the end of the link in the first example, but Canvas edits the & to &amp; and still no closed captions. Any ideas? Thank you!

[mworden]

So I'm NOT going crazy! Thanks for your input Barb.

[471e03c21da7287]

LIkewise! Very reassuring to find someone else noticed the same issue.

[christopher_phi]

Thanks for helping me to understand. I was able to duplicate the same error with those two videos. I don't know why it is happening yet, but I did find a workaround.

I'll look into the issue further to try and figure out what is going on, but in the meantime if you need to get a video posted with captions you can do so by going to the YouTube page, click "Share", click "Embed" and then copy the Embed code. Doing this the captions should show up.

Then in Canvas you edit your page and click on the "HTML Editor" where you can add the embed code. That is an ugly workaround though so hopefully we can figure out why it is happening using the "Link to URL" code!

[rgiovannetti762]

I have the same issue - some videos work and some don't - could this have something to do with when the videos were added to youtube? I can see not other differences

[mworden]

"could this have something to do with when the videos were added to youtube?"

If you view the video in YouTube the captioning is present. There is nothing apparent that would cause the captioning to vanish inside Canvas. If it were all videos I would say it's a Canvas issue, but because there doesn't seem to be any consistent pattern it's hard to know what direction to take. I think the more people that report this issue the more likely someone will come up with an answer.

[christopher_phi · Accepted solution]

I have been looking into this some more and can definitely confirm that it is not a Canvas issue that the captions are not appearing, however there is a way that I believe Canvas could fix the problem.

At first I thought it was maybe somehow pulling in a variable from a setting on the video to indicate whether the button was shown in the embed code, but I couldn't see any difference between the two videos. You can actually duplicate the problem on the YouTube site by playing those two videos full screen:

8 Lessons Learned Video

• Youtube  standard player with Caption button
• Youtube full screen with Caption button

Best Practices Video:

• Youtube  standard player with Caption button
• Youtube full screen without Caption button (even though the video is captioned)

So something is obviously going on with YouTube, but I can't figure out what. Regardless, it is probably still worth reporting to Canvas as they may be able to embed the videos in a different way that does display the caption button for all videos.

Does anyone else have additional videos where the caption button doesn't show up they could share try try and identify what the difference is?

[amanda_taintor · Accepted solution]

I have a video which I am linking from our district server and having the same issues. This could definitely be due to my lack of technological knowledge but I am not sure what else to try. when I play the video (using the same link) from my computer I have captions. When I play the link in Canvas I am not able to find the option to enable captions.

Thanks!

[LEESLEDD]

I want to not only see the CC button in embedded videos, but force captioning as a default. The code above is cited in many youtubes and sites as doing just that- https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/force-subtitles-embedded-youtube-video/

but I have not yet been able to force captioning in an embedded Youtube video in Canvas.