How do I create captions for my videos?

In Panopto, the ASR function (automated speech recognition) allows not only making videos searchable but also displaying automatically generated captions in the video.

You can enable this setting either for each individual video or at the folder level. The latter means that all videos in the folder will automatically receive automatically generated captions.

Create captions for a single video:

Screenshot of the editing mode of a video, in which all settings for subtitles can be made for the video under the menu item ‘Captions’. — Set up automatic caption generation in the video editing mode

To do this, you need to go to ''Captions'' in the menu on the left while in the editing mode of the video. There, you can first select the language for which you want to create captions (default setting: German).
You can then have captions created automatically (via ASR) ('‘Import automatic captions’') or upload your own translated captions if you need them in a second language.

Create captions at the folder level:

Screenshot of the folder settings, where you can make the setting ‘Automatic machine caption’ in the drop-down list under the menu item ‘Settings’ in the ‘Captions’ section. — In the folder settings, enable ''Automatic Machine Captions'' for all videos in the folder.

To do this, go to the folder settings (gear icon) and click on ''Settings'' in the menu on the left.
In the menu that appears, select ''Automatic Machine Captions'' in the dropdown list under the ''Captions'' section.
You can then close the folder settings using the X icon, and the captions setting will be applied.

Once you have applied this setting to a Panopto folder, all videos added to the folder after this point will automatically receive automatically generated captions.

For videos that already existed in the folder before this setting was applied, the setting will not take effect. If these videos should also have captions, the caption setting must be configured individually for each video as described above.

How accurate are the automatically generated captions (via ASR)?

The automatically generated captions are up to 75% accurate, depending on the audio quality, and usually require only minor corrections.

In addition to audio quality, the following factors also play a role:

Pronunciation (preferably clear and precise)
Number of speakers (ideally, not speaking simultaneously)
Language use (preferably not mixed, e.g., German & English)
Technical terms

Tip: Dictionary for speech recognition

If you frequently use words or technical terms that are consistently misrecognised and require manual corrections, please share these terms with us at panopto@tu-…. We can then check whether these terms can be added to the system's internal dictionary to improve recognition.

Further tips and notes:

For students to see the captions, they need to click the CC button ('closed captions') in the player.

Important: By default, automatic captions are created in German (unless the folder language has been changed beforehand – see FAQ ''What should I consider when saving videos in other languages on Panopto?'' ).

If the language in the video differs from the folder language, the captions can be reprocessed in the corresponding language. See “How to reprocess Automatic Captioning to a Different Language?” (opens in new tab).

Do you want to provide translated captions?

Check the FAQ ''How can I create captions in another language and what should I consider?''

Further frequently asked questions on this topic have been compiled by the manufacturer in this section: FAQs about Video Captioning, Answered (opens in new tab)

Update: 09.12.2024