This means that it’s possible to dynamically add captions to already purchased audio/video content via iTunes.

Below is a link to some samples of our new technology for audio/video Podcast with Closed-Captioning. Please make sure you have the latest version of iTunes.

http://www.multimediatest.com/Site/ Press “Subscribe” to download the podcast samples and how-to video.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Kind regards,

Giovanni Galvez

The first thing to do is to install MAGpie 2 from http://ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/magpie/. Follow the installation instructions closely and you should have no problem getting it running on your machine. The tutorial from the University of Wisconsin that I mentioned earlier is a great resource.

Once you have MAGpie running, you’ll need two things: caption text and a source movie. For the text, use any text editor MS Word, WordPad, etc.), but you have to save the file in .txt format.

You’ll use your text editor
to break up your transcript

into two-line captions
32 characters long or fewer.

This is a skill
developed over time.

A great resource for making good readable captions is from the Captioned Media Program at http://www.cfv.org/caai/nadh7.pdf .

So now you have a .txt file. Next you need your video. When working with MAGpie, I prefer using QuickTime compatible movies. So if you haven’t already, export your video from Ulead using the MPEG-4 format.

Now you can follow the Wisconsin tutorial to create your first project. I’ll also email you a .magpie file that already has the text imported into it. You’ll have to relink the video in MAGpie by using “File: Properties: Base Media.” Also in Properties, you’ll see settings for text properties. For YouTube, I suggest setting the font to Arial size to 16.

Play around with MAGpie. One trick I use for timing is to wait a half second before pressing F9 for each caption. I then select all the caption rows and use “Captions: Offset time of selected rows” and subtract a half second. This probably doesn’t make any sense now but it will later.

Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll walk you through the steps for preparing your captined video for YouTube.

I just got QuickTime Pro recently and I will install sometime this week — this way I will do the procedure how you made it. Also, I performed little experiment with “subtitle” on my “dogs in pool” video. I mastered how to do that with Ulead VideoStudio 10. I realized that I should have prepared transcript first thing otherwise you will keep going back and forth. It is time consuming.

Before I begin, I need to see what you created caption for my video recently. (Youtube) Can you e-mail me “transcript” for it? This way I will get the idea. Does it comes in space for each comment or sentence and do you create transcript on notepad or Word?

Thanks for heading up.

gwlj

QuickTime Pro is one strategy for preparing your captioned video to upload to free video sites like YouTube or Google Video. When you’re ready, contact me and I’ll walk you through it.

I hope you don’t mind but I posted a quick closed captioned test of your
video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6iQKerXhQ8

The video is jerky because I had to do a screen capture to get it into
QuickTime. The captions are at the top because I didn’t want to cover your
hands. The typeface is large because YouTube tends to make video a little
blurry and I wanted to make sure the captions would be legible.

Anyway, it’s an example to work from. It really doesn’t take much too much
skill, just a little practice with MAGpie and a copy of QuickTime Pro.

James

—–Original Message—–
From: Grant W Laird Jr [mailto:grant@crazytech.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 11:55 AM
To: jshort@harkle.com
Subject: Re: [Grant W. Laird, Jr. Blog] Comment: “Caption Online?”

James,

Sure! Can you give me website address where it show how to make one?

I am sure we can do it with Nero or Ulead software but its require alot
of work….

Hmmm