Creating Captions for Rich Media

NCAM has developed methods for creating and delivering captions for Web-based multimedia. MAGpie, our captioning software, facilitates the creation of a timed-text caption file, and developers can choose to incorporate the captions into QuickTime, Real, or Windows Media. This page offers a development strategy split into two parts: Part 1: Creating Captions, for those starting from scratch, and Part 2: Adding Captions to Media, for those who already have a timed-text caption file.

Creating Captions:

Before creating captions, you will need 3 things:

A media file.: MAGpie 2.01 is able to play any media type, but MAgpie 1.0 can only play Windows Media compatible media. MAGpie 1.0 uses Windows Media player to display the video during caption creation. You can convert a copy of your media to a Windows Media supported format and then use the caption file with your media in the desired format.
A transcript of audio information, in digital format.: Sooner or later, the transcript will need to be typed into a text file. Whether you have the text file already or not, here are a few suggestions for preformatting the transcript before importing it into MAGpie.
MAGpie.: Our captioning and describing tool. You can download and use MAGpie for free.

Next, you will need to use MAGpie to create the captions. We provide instructions for MAGpie 2.01 and a tutorial for MAGpie 1.0 which provide step-by-step directions. Also of interest is the Caption Center's Suggested Style Guide, which details conventions of captioning.

Once you have used MAGpie to create a timed-text caption file, you are ready for the next step.

Adding Captions to Media:

To add captions to your media, you should have either a RealText file (*.rt), a QTtext (*.txt -- with QuickTime text tags), or a SAMI file (.smi). You may, if you are providing your media in different formats, have more than one of these.

The process for adding captions to a media clip is fairly straightforward. However, it is dependant on the player that you are targeting for playback of the media.

QuickTime

QuickTime provides two options for adding captions. You can convert the caption file into a QuickTime movie and add it to the main media, or you can write a SMIL file for QuickTime to use to combine the elements that make up the presentation.

Directions for converting a caption file into a QuickTime movie.
SMIL templates for QuickTime.

SMIL

SMIL is a markup language used to combine and synchronize multiple elements of a presentation. The 'Tools' area of this site contains a list of SMIL players. Two of the most popular players, RealPlayer and QuickTime, understand SMIL files, and SMIL represents the only way to present synchronized captions in RealPlayer.

If you used MAGpie to create your RealText (*.rt) captions file, then you already have a SMIL file that will play in real player. Start RealPlayer and open the SMIL file -- you will see captions underneath the main media. If you want some suggestions on writing your own SMIL file, or you want to add other elements to your presentation, or you need to create a SMIL file that will work in QuickTime, follow the links below.

Links to SMIL tutorials and information.
SMIL templates.

SAMI

Windows Media Player makes adding captions very simple. If you used MAGpie to create the SAMI file (*.smi), all that you need to do is make sure that the SAMI file is in the same directory as the main media. When you open the main media (e.g. a video), the SAMI file will also open and captions will be displayed.

Links to more information about Windows Media and SAMI.