Need your movies to get extra views? Add captions to them! There are two methods to do it: manually and robotically. Let’s stroll via each.

There are two forms of video captions: closed captions and open captions.

  • Closed captions could be turned on or off by the viewer, which is very helpful for people who don’t want captions on a regular basis.
  • Open captions, often known as burned-in captions, are completely on high of a video and can’t be turned off. They are often fairly helpful for large occasions like conferences the place a lot of persons are watching the identical display. Plus, they’re an ideal selection for movies hosted on platforms that don’t help closed captioning.

The selection between the 2 boils all the way down to the video platform you’re utilizing and what works finest in your viewers.

It is a tremendous hands-on course of that’s time-consuming and never precisely enjoyable. You’ll have to sort out each line of dialogue, add correct timestamps, put it aside as an SRT file, and add it together with your video. And it’s a must to ensure that your internet hosting platform helps closed captions.

Going for open captions? When you’ve typed up your captions and added timestamps, most editors (like Adobe Premiere Professional) allow you to burn them into the video. Search for an possibility known as “Burn Captions Into Video” within the export settings.

Now, let’s speak in regards to the quicker and simpler method! Some video internet hosting platforms robotically generate captions for you. These captions aren’t at all times essentially the most correct proper out of the gate, which is why you need to go along with a platform that allows you to edit captions too. With Wistia, you possibly can generate captions and polish them up in simply minutes. Right here’s how:

1. Upload your video to Wistia and have it transcribed

As soon as your video’s in Wistia, open the Transcript tab, choose “Generate transcript,” and both:

  • Routinely generate a transcript: Free (relying in your plan), prepared in minutes, and about 95% correct.
  • Order an expert, human-generated transcript: Rated at 99% accuracy, and delivered in 4 enterprise days or someday (at a further value).

It’s also possible to select to robotically activate captions as quickly because the transcript is prepared. When you go that route, you’re all set. No further steps wanted.

Choose to present your transcript a fast polish? Simply transfer on to the subsequent step to deliver its accuracy as much as 100%.

Wistia additionally injects your transcript into your video’s structured knowledge. This helps engines like google higher perceive the video’s contents and rank it greater. We’ve obtained an article on video metadata if you wish to study extra about video website positioning.

2. Edit the transcript for accuracy

It’s as straightforward as one, two, three:

  1. Hop into the media web page.
  2. Edit the transcript.
  3. Hit “Save.”

3. Turn on the captions

Head to the Controls tab within the Customise panel, swap on the captions, and voila. Your video now has a CC button within the playbar. Your viewers can activate the captions if they need — and even customise the textual content measurement, colour, and distinction to go well with their preferences! Wish to attempt it for your self? Open the caption settings on this video and go wild:

4. Burn captions into your video (optional)

Open your video in Wistia’s video editor and:

  1. Toggle the “activate” possibility within the captions tab.
  2. Select a template.
  3. Customise the colour, measurement, font, and place.

These preferences are “sticky,” in order that they’re remembered per browser and machine to create a constant viewing expertise throughout your whole video library.

After we analyzed movies uploaded to Wistia for our 2025 State of Video Report, we discovered using captions has jumped 572% since 2021. And it’s no shock why.

Captions make movies simpler to look at for extra folks, whether or not they’re laborious of listening to, watching with out sound, or simply favor to learn alongside. They’re a easy approach to make your content material extra accessible and inclusive.

However captions don’t simply assist your viewers. In addition they assist your online business. They enhance your search rating, enhance social engagement, hold you compliant with accessibility legal guidelines, and extra.

Wish to dig deeper? We’ve obtained extra on that right here.


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