The purpose of this knowledge base article is to explain how to correct captions created by Panopto or Stream.

Captions on videos help everyone. They are essential for those who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. Captions increase audience comprehension for those listening to content in a second language.

About automated captions

Automated captions are available for videos uploaded to Stream and Panopto.

• Automated captions in Stream.
• Automated captions in Panopto.

Automated captions are rarely 100% right. You may need to correct captions in your videos. When viewers rely on video content for learning and teaching accuracy is important.

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Editing and correcting captions

Both Stream and Panopto allow caption correction using their interfaces. A separate application, SubtitleEdit, is available when you want more powerful caption editing options.

Correcting Stream Captions using Stream

To correct captions in a video for which you have permissions to do so in Stream:

1. Open the video.
2. Select Transcript.
3. Select or hover your mouse pointer over the caption you wish to correct and choose Edit.
4. Make your correction and press Enter, or select the Done button to finish correcting the caption.
5. Repeat until your corrected captions meet your expectations for quality.

No captions available to correct?

If you cannot find the Transcript menu, it is likely that no captions are available for the video. To generate captions, follow these steps.

1. Select Video settings.
2. Select Transcript and captions.
3. Select Generate and follow the on-screen instructions.

Find more information about Stream and captions on the Microsoft 365 Support Centre.

Where to store Stream recordings?

The best place to store Stream recordings is in a shared location like a document library in a SharePoint or a Teams site.

 

Correcting Panopto Captions using Panopto

To correct captions in a video for which you have permissions to do so in Panopto:

1. Find the video for which you wish to correct captions and select the three dots and choose Edit.
2. Select the Captions menu, the video’s captions will appear.
3. To correct a caption, click into it with your mouse to edit it.
4. When you have made your changes select the Apply button to save the changes.

Find more information about Panopto and captions on the elearning support website.

Where to store Panopto recordings

You will already have chosen where to store a Panopto recording when you created it. More information about setting up Panopto.

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Correcting captions using SubtitleEdit

If you are correcting captions for a longer video and wish to adjust their timing and formatting you may prefer to use SubtitleEdit. SubtitleEdit is available from Additional Software on University-managed PCs. SubtitleEdit is not supported by ServiceLine, but we make it available for power users who wish to have more control over their captions.

An overview of the process for correcting captions using SubtitleEdit is:

1. Download the captions from Stream or Panopto.
2. Edit them in SubtitleEdit.
3. Upload the corrected captions to Stream or Panopto.

Downloading captions in Stream

1. Open the video.
2. Select Transcript.
3. Select Download and choose Download as .vtt.
4. Save the .vtt file to your computer.

Downloading captions in Panopto

1. Find the video for which you wish to correct captions and select Settings.
2. Select captions.
3. Expand the details for the captions under the Available Captions heading.
4. Select download file.
5. A text file containing your captions will be saved to your computer.

Editing captions in SubtitleEdit

SubtitleEdit is not supported by ServiceLine. Information and videos about using SubtitleEdit are available on the program’s website.

The key steps are:

1. Open the captions file that you downloaded. SubtitleEdit can open files created by both Stream and Panopto.
2. Edit the captions.
3. Save the captions file when you have completed your corrections.
   1. For Stream save the file in .vtt format.
   2. For Panopto save the file in .srt format.

Uploading corrected captions in Stream

1. Open the video.
2. Select Transcript and captions.
3. Select Upload and follow the on-screen instructions.

Uploading corrected captions in Panopto

1. Find the video for which you wish to correct captions and select edit.
2. Select the Captions menu.
3. Identify your current automated captions and select the Delete Captions link. This is necessary because you cannot have two captions of the same language for a video.
4. Select Import captions and choose upload or request captions.
5. Under the Upload Captions heading:
   1. Set the language of the captions you will upload by using the dropdown menu.
   2. Select the browse button and choose the srt file you created.
   3. Select the Upload Captions button.
6. When you refresh your video, the updated captions should appear.

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Learn more about captions in University of Southampton services

• Stream on SharePoint - How do I ... ? 
• Panopto – Creating automatic captions/subtitles
• Captions with University Services

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Caption perfection

While accuracy is paramount there are other ways you can improve your captions.

• Fix punctuation issues. For example, “Let’s eat Matt!” has a different meaning to “Let’s eat, Matt!”
• Aim for complete sentences within a caption. This is better than the last few words of a sentence carrying over into a new caption that starts a new sentence.
• If there is more than one speaker, add their name each time the speaker changes. This is particularly important for transcripts or when the speaker is off-screen.

Find more captioning tips in Meryl Evan’s blog post, 10 Rules You Need to Create Great Captioned Videos.

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