[ARCHIVED] Can I get a transcript of the closed captioning done in Studio?

[kteh]

I was able to add the closed captioning to a video on Studio. Is it possible to get/download a copy of the transcript?

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi  @kteh ...

This Guide, How do I add captions to media in Canvas Studio?, shows you how you can download the closed caption file from a Studio video.  It will not be in paragraph form, though.  Rather, it will be a SRT or VTT file (which is what closed captioning files are) that display start/end times for each of the captions to show on the video...similar to what is shown in this example: https://www.3playmedia.com/2017/06/30/how-to-create-a-webvtt-file/.

I hope this will help, Kaya.  Please let Community members know if you have any other questions about this...thanks!  Take care...stay safe...be well.

[HeatherHouston]

This is seriously not helpful.  Clicking on the links garners a - you do not have access to this - error message.  How is that even possible?  I need to know how to download a transcript from the closed captioning in studio and these links are not working.

[Stef_retired]

Thank you for reporting the broken link, @HeatherHouston . We've fixed the first link; the second one directs correctly to WebVTT Captions: How to Create a Web Video Text Track File 

[Stef_retired]

...and whenever a link to a lesson isn't working in a reply, you can still access all of our documentation directly from the top navigation menu. You'll see the link to Canvas Studio documentation in the first dropdown.

[willmoin]

We could really do with a method for students to be able to download the captions as a transcript. There was an Idea Exchange/feature request for it but unfortunately with only 4 votes it got archived (more a problem with the voting system than anything else I think): https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/Enable-closed-captions-transcripts-to-be-avail...

For a lecturer who has 60 videos I suggested the approach below, but given that number the lecturer fed back that it wasn't a realistic prospect, so it would be really good to see something nice and free added to Canvas to save us work! 

These are how you do it:

1. So now that the captions have been created in Canvas Studio, you can download them using the instructions about 2/3rds of the way down this guide: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Studio/How-do-I-upload-a-caption-file-to-Canvas-Studio-media/ta-p...

2. This downloads a .zip file containing two '.srt' files (they will probably both be the same). These are text files that you can open up in NotePad, or TextEdit, and you can probably even persuade Microsoft Word to open them. But what you will find is that all of  your words are there but they are not in paragraph format; they contain the 'time codes' that relate to where in the video the caption applies.

3. You could either manually edit the file to remove these (for example in Word), but even better there are web services that will do this for you for free. Here is an example website 'Happyscribe' where you can upload the .srt file and have it output a text file without the timecode: https://www.happyscribe.com/subtitle-tools/convert-srt-to-text

4. Upload the text file into your course, and place links to it maybe next to your video

[RaeJobst]

Yes - the ability for students to download a transcript would be a huge step in terms of accessibility. Also - we have been using Stream which has a searchable interactive transcript. That is a powerful feature for all students - particularly when revising for exams.

[jbernal]

Thank you so much for sharing the link. I agree a transcript should absolutely be a feature within Studio. Do you have to fix the formatting (deleting the spacing between each line) for each video? Am I missing another step?