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Today, it is quite simple to create audio or video and upload it to YouTube.
After the file is uploaded, You Tube will make an attempt to create closed captions to your file.
The emphasis here is attempt.
Perhaps in the future, YouTube will be able to preform this function practically flawless,
but at the present time, you cannot depend on this transcript to be usable for accessibility and universal design.
For example, take a look at the transcript for the audio for this file.
[Poor translation begins here.] grades from kuwait i marry and mister the music it just hurts the cult prayer grades from kuwait i marry and mister the music it just hurts the cult prayer
broadcasted from a nearby mosque
my husband carl accepted a position to teach at the coast university for
science and technology
we met halfway around the world
this is something of france and family had a hard time understanding
today a m kuwait would mean that are likely be constantly in danger
indiana's but not from terrace from traffic [Poor translation ends here.]
You may be thinking that the transcription is particuliarly bad because I speak in a strong southern accent, and the other voice has a middle eastern accent.
However, if you looked at other YouTube videos, you would notice the same problem.
Fortunately, you can create a transcript and replace the transcript that YouTube provides with your own.
Amazingly it matches your transcript to the voiceover very well.
Let me show you how.
First, create your own transcript.
Although you can transcribe your video after it is complete, the best way is to create the script first and then use it to record your video.
After you have typed out your transcript, copy and past it into a basic text editing program.
Because I work on a Mac, I copied mine from InDesign into the text editor.
If you are using a PC, you can copy the transcript from Word into a text editor like Notepad.
Save the file as a txt file.
If you happen to be in YouTube, you can always get to your captions by clicking here. [caption button clicked.]
This is where you have the options to add captions and where we will upload the captions you just made.
Click on the “Add captions button.” [button clicked.]
Upload Transcript. [upload transcript button clicked]
This is where I have the file. [file is shown in Finder]
You may have to scroll over.
Click “sink.” {sync button clicked]
[dialogue box:] Transcript is in progress, please check again in a while.
And it does take a few minutes, so we are going to pause and give it a chance to do that.
[second track shows up] As you can see, we now have another track. And if you click it,
it has uploaded the whole transcript.
Now, what we want to do is make it the track that is used when someone clicks on the video.
So let’s go to the “track list.” [track list link is clicked]
You see we have two active tracks.
We want to take the automatic caption track
Go under “actions” and click disable.
So now the active track is the track that we made.
Let’s try it.
The captions on the video are as follows: “call to prayer music”
[YouTube video plays] Greetings. I’m MaryAnne Nestor and the music you’ve just heard is the call to prayer broadcasted from a nearby mosque
When my husband, Carl, accepted a position to teach at the Gulf University for Science and Technology,
we moved half way around the world. This is something our friends and family had a hard time understanding.
To them, our life would be constantly in danger...and it is..but not from terrorists...from traffic. [YouTube video ends]
As you can see, it is fairly easy to make a YouTube accessible.
If you make some some small changes, you can also make it here. [the caption track can be edited directly from YouTube.]
But I recommend that if you have large changes, just to delete this file and upload a new one for it to sync correctly.
Okay, it’s your turn. Give it a try.