Web Video Captioning Reviewer Style Guide

Web Captions Reviews are very detail-oriented. Refer to the following when completing these tasks.

Style Guide:

The transcript should be accurate and adhere to the web captions style guide.

**If a sentence starts with And, But, or So, and the transcriber did not transcribe it, do not add it back in.**

**If the transcriber did not transcribe filler words AND they do not add meaning to the sentence, do not add them back in. If they are necessary to the meaning of a sentence, add them in.**

Time anchors:

When formatted correctly, timestamps will be consumed by the system in the syncing process. As the reviewer, you will not see these. If you find multiple instances of timestamps, please notify worker@speechpad.com. 

Timing:

• Files must be timed accurately. You will sometimes have to change the start/end time of a subtitle group.

• Use the blue buttons, or keyboard shortcuts to start and end subtitle groups

Keyboard shortcuts for timing:

• • ctrl+comma to set the beginning time.

  • ctrl+period to set the end time.

  • ctrl+shift+period to set the end time AND the start time of the next group at the same time.

  • ctrl+arrow keys fast forward or rewind.

  • Single mouse click  to choose subtitle group.

  • Double mouse click to choose subtitle group AND jump to that location in the video.

Subtitle groups should not remain on screen for extended periods of time once speaking has ended or before speaking starts. Unless requested by the customer, leaving text on screen for a 1-2 second pause is okay.

Examples:

• • Text appears at 00:00:07. Speaking starts at 00:00:13. Adjust the start time of this group.

• • Text ends at 00:07:48. Speaking ends at  00:07:40. Adjust the end time of this group.

Spacing:

When subtitle lines are very unproportional, move words around in the same group so they look about even.

Example:

Can be rearranged to:

Creating/Merging Subtitle groups:

• If corrections go over the character per line limit, you must make a new group. (Standard is 42 per line, 84 per group, but it can vary per customer request).

• If there is a long pause between sentences and both sentences are in the same subtitle group you must make a new group.

Examples of "long" pauses as above:

Pause for clear transition in video.

5+ second pauses that the transcriber forgot to tag

Excessive length of “breath” or “page turning” pauses based on your best judgment

• If a caption group cannot be on screen more than 0.300 seconds, maybe you can Merge it with the next subtitle group. (Same Speaker)

• If a caption group cannot be on screen more than 0.300 seconds, maybe you can Merge it with the next subtitle group. (Different Speaker)

• Two speakers can occupy the same subtitle group for timing purposes if:

  • Each speaker’s phrase/sentence is complete on only one “line” of the subtitle group.

  • There is slight crosstalk and merging the lines would help the viewer understand both participants’ lines.

• Some files have custom formatting that allow for more than 42 characters per line. If the validator is not giving you an error, you do not need to correct it. If in doubt, email worker@speechpad.com

• Click “Add a New Subtitle Group” to make a new group:

• • Pull text from the groups around it so it doesn’t look too unnatural

  • Resync the few lines where you removed/added text.

Music:

• • Music must be in its own subtitle group.

Incorrect:

Correct:

• • Music only appears on screen for up to 3 seconds even if it lasts for longer.

Incorrect, please shorten:

Correct:

• • If music does not last for at least 3 seconds, but was tagged, you can remove it.

• • If the transcriber left off the music notes, press this button.

Foreign Language:

[Foreign Language] tags should follow the same rules as music tags: on screen for a maximum of 3 seconds and in their own subtitle group.

Silence:

[Silence] tags must be removed. They are transcribed as placeholders for the system.

Inaudible:

Remove the time marker from inaudible tags. They should appear as [inaudible] in the final captions.

Correct:

Lyrics:

The transcribers are instructed to transcribe lyrics with one music note at the beginning and one at the end of all lyrics. Reviewers must make sure there is a music note at the beginning and end of each subtitle group.  

This button will automatically put the notes at the beginning and end of the group.

Lyric subtitle groups will look like this when done correctly:

♪ lyrics lyrics lyrics

lyrics lyrics lyrics ♪

♪ lyrics lyrics lyrics

lyrics lyrics lyrics. ♪

Titles:

• Transcribers are instructed to put titles in quotes. Remove the quotes and make appropriate titles italic.

• Only switch to italics if it's correct to do so. Follow this guide on italics versus quotation marks:

http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/punctuation/titles-using-italics-and-quotation-marks.html

• Here is an additional resource that may help in determining which titles to italicize.

https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/offices/advancement-and-community-engagement/communications/creative-services/editorial-style-guide/quotes-italics-nothing.html

• Highlight the appropriate title and press the i button.

Positioning:

• Positioning for standard captions files should only be done if there are special instructions to do so. This means to move the subtitle group to the top of the screen when there is text on the bottom that is covered up by the subtitles. Here's how to do this:

• Go to Window>Format Subtitles.

• This box will pop up.

• The left column is top/middle/bottom positioning. Only use top and bottom positioning. The right column is left/center/right justification. Do not change this.

• Click the top position for any/all subtitle groups that cover on-screen text. 

Technical Files:

Transcriber instructions say:

Do not use < >, use larrow and rarrow . Codes often interfere with the captions generation when they have these specific characters in them. As a reviewer, you will manually swap the appropriate word for symbol

Exception 2: If there are parenthesis or brackets in the code, make sure they are a pair even if it's not in the code. For example ( and ) { and } [ and ]. The file will not validate otherwise.

<form> tag

Not

larrow form rarrow tag

Poor Transcripts:

If multiple style guide rules were not followed or it is obvious the style guide was ignored altogether, please e-mail worker@speechpad.com with the AID number.

Console and Troubleshooting:

• You can change the orientation of the reviewer console to top and bottom or side by side here:

• You can change how compact your subtitle groups appear in the console. Changing this does not affect anything the client receives. It is just for your convenience.

Validator:

• Warnings in yellow do not have to be addressed in order to submit. Red warnings must be corrected before you can submit.

• Notices of British English spelling should be double checked since we use only U.S. spelling unless specified by the client.

• Here are some tips and tricks if the console is giving you trouble.

  1. Clear out your cookies and cache if the videos won’t load/the video won’t play correctly when you double-click a subtitle group, etc.

  2. Download the srt and the video. If you think the timing is off because of the console, load the srt and the video in VLC or another video player to check if the timing is correct or not. If they're correct outside our console, try clearing cookies and cache.

  3. Email worker@speechpad.com. We can check if there really are time anchors in the file or not.

  4. Sometimes the timing errors happen when you double-click on a subtitle group. It's actually synced correctly but when you jump around it doesn't play correctly. Just jump a few lines back farther than where you want to be and watch that the timer changes when it should.

Final Notes:

The best way to get faster at captions files is practice, practice, practice. With time, you’ll be able to notice a lot of potential console or style guide issues just at a glance.