Captions

Machine Captions

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Beginning March 22, 2025, videos uploaded to MediaSpace will have machine-generated captions automatically ordered and applied at no charge. After you upload your video to MediaSpace, captions may take a few hours or more depending on server usage. When captions are available, you will see the cc button on the player and will be able to edit.

Please be sure to review the machine-generated captions and make any corrections needed to ensure proper digital accessibility requirements, and then remove the "(Auto Generated)" suffix from the captions file label. You can do this by clicking on the Edit details next to the English (Auto Generated) selection.

Machine captions are generally about 85% accurate, however, these results may vary depending on the audio quality of your media. For best results, we recommend that you speak clearly and record your media in a quiet environment. Additionally, it is best to avoid using acronyms, contractions, or other terminology that may be difficult for the machine to interpret. It may be beneficial to read from a script as this tends to improve the quality of the audio track. Please keep in mind that because this is a machine captioning of the audio, the transcript will not be perfect. You should anticipate that the transcript will need editing.

Ordering Machine Captions Through MediaSpace

Once your content is available in MediaSpace, you can order machine captions and edit any inaccuracies using the steps listed further down on this page.

1. Login to mediaspace.msu.edu, then navigate to My Media.
2. Click on the video you wish to order captions for, then go to the Actions drop down menu and click on + Captions & Enrich. The Existing Requests and Order Captions and Enrichment Services sections will appear.
3. Scroll down to the Order Captions and Enrichment Services section. Ensure that the Source Media Language is correct.
4. Select the Submit button to order your captions.
5. After captions are ordered, you will be able to see their status in the Existing Requests section. You will receive a notification email when your captions are done processing.

Caption Reference Guides

https://webaccess.msu.edu/tutorials/video/caption-guide

https://tech.msu.edu/news/2013/05/a-guide-for-captioning-video/

Editing Machine Captions in MediaSpace

The accuracy of machine captions is dependent on the quality of the recording and the speaker's voice, we strongly recommend that you correct the inaccuracies of the captions manually, which can be done through the captions editor in MediaSpace.

To edit your captions:

1. Login to mediaspace.msu.edu, then navigate to My Media.
2. Click on the video you wish to edit captions for, then go to the Actions drop down menu and click on + Caption & Enrich. The Existing Requests and Order Captions and Enrichment Services sections will appear.
3. Scroll down to the Existing Requests section and select the pencil (edit icon) next to the completed caption request.
4. This will open the Closed Captions Editor and you can make any necessary changes to your captions.
5.  Remove the "English (Auto Generated)" suffix from the captions Label. You can do this by clicking on the Edit details selection.
6. When you are finished editing, click the Save button located in the top right corner and your captions will be updated.

For additional guidance, please refer to Editing Captions – REACH v2 and REACH v2 Captions FAQ.

Deleting Machine Captions in MediaSpace

If you delete the machine captions, you will not be able to order the same language machine captions again for this video. You must upload a copy of this video again.

There are some instances where you may want to delete caption or transcript files from your MediaSpace content. For example, if you ordered machine captions (which require editing for accuracy), then later decide that you would like to replace them with professional paid captions provided by a vendor, you will want to delete the less accurate machine captions. This will avoid confusion for your viewers about which captions and transcripts that you would like them to view.

These instructions will help you delete caption and transcript files from your MediaSpace content. Note that video owners are the only users who can delete caption or transcript files.

Deleting Captions

1. Login to your MSU MediaSpace account and navigate to the media item of which you would like to delete the captions.
2. Go to the Actions menu and select Edit. This will take you to the video editing page.
3. Navigate to the Captions tab and click the X icon to delete the caption file.

Deleting Transcripts

1. Login to your MSU MediaSpace account and navigate to the media item of which you would like to delete the transcript.
2. Go to the Actions menu and select Edit. This will take you to the video editing page.
3. To delete the transcripts associated with the video you've selected, navigate to the Attachments tab on the video editing page, and click the X icon to delete the transcript.

Note: If you have purchased captions from Rev.com and would like to include transcripts in addition to the caption files in your course, you can request transcripts from Rev.com using their self-service Captions Converter service free of charge. Providing access to both captions and transcripts is a recommended Universal Design for Learning approach that provides flexibility to your students as an alternative to watching the video.

Paid Captioning Resources

Paid caption services offer better accuracy compared to machine captions. Click on the link below to order paid captions:

https://apps.d2l.msu.edu/kaltura/captions/