Subtitles and videos on Amara

Subtitle Options on Amara

The first step in choosing a format is to decide how you want the final subtitles or captions to display in the video. There are two ways to display captions on video content:

• Open captions are always on and cannot be turned off.

  • Open captions are only available through our in-house subtitling team, Amara On Demand. 

• Closed captions allow the viewer to turn them on or off. 

  • Closed captions are a separate file played with the video, so you can add multiple subtitle files for viewers to choose from.

  • The standard option on Amara is closed captions or subtitles.

Subtitle Formats Available For All Amara Users

All Amara users have multiple formats to choose from on the Amara subtitling platform:

Format

Description

SBV: YouTube format

DFXP: Timed Text Markup Language- TTML: Distribution Format Exchange Profile, subtitles in an XML file, with file extension .dfxp, for software and media services that support the common Timed Text standard

VTT: Web Video Text Track format, the W3C standard for video on the web. It's similar to SRT but supports a lot more features

SRT: The standard subtitle format supported by most video players

SSA: SubStation Alpha subtitle format. A popular format for hardcoding subtitles.

TXT: Text transcript, without timestamps

.xml: If you need Timed Text subtitles with .xml file extension. Change the file name ending from .dfxp to .xml

Additional Subtitle Formats Through AOD

Amara On Demand (AOD) is Amara's in-house subtitling service. In addition to the subtitle formats listed above, AOD provides ITT, SCC, CAP formats and open captions embedded in the video.

• Send us a request and we'll be happy to help with your projects.

• If you order from AOD, your professional subtitles will be delivered in a private file in the format of your choice.

Format

Description

ITT: Timed Text Markup Language for iTunes, subtitles in an XML file, with file extension .itt, for software and media services that only support the ITT version of Timed Text

SCC: Scenarist Closed Captions, a legacy format from analog broadcasts. Supports English captions and characters from the main western languages.

CAP: Videotron Lambda captions, a common format in the Japanese market

Captions for Social Media

Tips for the most common media sites.

• Facebook and Instagram both use unformatted SRT files.

  • Neither platform supports positioning, special characters,or text formatting.

• YouTube, Vimeo, or Kaltura use WebVTT files.

  • These online platforms allow some styling to your subtitle files. 

Download Subtitles

You might want to download subtitles to add to a video that you are watching on your computer or edit offline using other subtitle editors.

Download Subtitles from Simple Teams (Plus, Community)

• Go to the video page for the subtitles you want to download. 

• Click the Download button to the right of the Subtitles header.

• Select the language and the file format you want from the dropdown lists, then click Download.

Download Subtitles from Collaboration Teams (Enterprise, Community Enterprise)

• Go to the video page for the subtitles you want to download. 

• Click the subtitle language under the Completed Subtitles or Incomplete Subtitles header.

• Click Download under the subtitle language header.

• Select the file form you want from the dropdown menu.

The selected subtitles will be downloaded to your computer. You can now view or edit the file in a text editor on your computer or upload them to a video player.

• When downloading subtitles, make sure to save them directly to disk rather than let the browser open them with the default application.

For more tips and tricks about subtitle formatting, check out this blog post about subtitle formats available on Amara.

Set up automatic subtitle export from Amara

You can automatically export completed subtitles from Amara to your channel or account on video hosting platforms. 

Automatic Export from Amara Orders Workspace User Accounts

• Integrate Your YouTube Channel with Your Personal Orders Workspace on Amara

• Integrate Your Vimeo Account with Your Personal Orders Workspace on Amara 

Automatic Export from Amara Teams (Admins only)

• Automatic subtitle export to YouTube

• Automatic subtitle export to Vimeo

• Automatic subtitle export to Kaltura

Upload Subtitles From the Video Page

Upload Subtitles to Videos on Simple Teams (Plus, Community)

• On the video page, click the kebab menu next to the Add/Edit Subtitles button

• Then select the Upload subtitles item from the dropdown menu:
   

Important: For videos on Collaboration Teams (Enterprise, Community Enterprise) you can only upload subtitles from within the Editor. See the Upload Subtitles in the Editor section below.

When you upload subtitles, you have to select the language of your subtitles. 

• If there are already subtitles in that language for your video on Amara, those subtitles will be replaced by the uploaded version.

• View different versions of subtitles in a language by clicking the language under the subtitle list on the right side of the video.

Uploading subtitles on the video page will automatically mark them as complete. 

• If you have an integration set up to YouTube, Vimeo, or another video hosting site, the uploaded subtitles will be visible on that site.

• If you want to make edits before your subtitles export, upload them in the Editor following the steps in the next section.

Upload Subtitles in the Editor

You can upload subtitles for videos on Simple Teams (Plus, Community) from within the Amara Editor.

• Go to the video page and click on the Add/Edit Subtitles button.

• Select the language that you want to add and open the Editor.

Note: For videos on Collaboration Teams (Enterprise, Community Enterprise) you can only upload subtitles from within the Editor. On those teams, first you must take on the Transcription or Translation Request, then enter the Editor by choosing to edit the subtitle language.

• In the Amara Editor click the Subtitle tools button and select the Upload subtitles item from the dropdown menu:

• Choose the subtitle file, then click on Upload.

If you had had any unsaved changes in the Editor prior to uploading, you may see another dialog warning you about abandoning those changes. If you continue with uploading, unsaved changes will be lost.

Using YouTube ASR captions

• Any Amara user can download and upload YouTube ASR manually and edit the subtitles on Amara.

• Amara Team subscriptions like Amara Community, Amara Plus and Amara Enterprise teams have the additional option of automatically importing YouTube ASR captions when they integrate their Amara team and YouTube channel.

Uploading Untimed Transcript (.txt) Files

You can upload an untimed text transcript, and use the Amara Editor to synchronize its timing and make any necessary edits to the transcript.

For example: 

Hello, this is my first line of the subtitle transcript.

And here is my second line of the transcript, but it's exceptionally long,

so I separated it into a third line.

• Your transcript file needs to be in TXT format (filename.txt).

• If your file isn’t in TXT format you can copy and paste the text from your file into a new document with Notepad++ (Windows PC), Geddit (Linux PC) or TextWrangler (Mac).

• When saving your TXT file, make sure that UTF-8 Encoded is selected and save it with the extension .txt

• Then follow the steps in the Uploading Subtitles section above.