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hms413
Participating Frequently
August 23, 2016
Question

Export to Video and include Captions

  • August 23, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 978 views

I am looking to export as video with the captions embedded. Is this possible? Up until now I've only exported to HTML/F4V with closed captioning,

The only program I've ever found able to do this is Adobe Encore, which is becoming obsolete (and even still it was never super "close caption" friendly-- they were considered "subtitles" actually.)

Any suggestions for embedded captions? And any tips for exporting Captionate project to Video?

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    1 reply

    Allen_Partridge
    Adobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    August 23, 2016

    Haley, we support both embedded and ride-along cc files from Adobe Presenter Video Express. Another problem that you'll encounter is that if the cc content is riding along in a formatted file, you both need to include the file wherever you put the video - and the video player needs to support the video playback.

    In PVX when the captions are embedded, they are burned right into the video itself - so there is no need for any support from the video player, but that also means that there is no way to switch the captions on or off. They are always on once they are burned in.

    You could theoretically mirror this behavior even inside a Captivate project by using the export to video feature on a traditional (non responsive project) and adding captions as text strings on each screen to act as CC.

    The closed captions themselves however don't burn in during the video publishing process in Captivate. As far as I know, the cc file doesn't automatically get associated / formatted as a cc file when publishing / exporting a Captivate file as video only.

    In general you'd want a file like a *.SRT file - which is actually quite simple in structure. Basically you have the caption number, the timecode range, and the caption. You can get the slide number and the caption from Captivate simply by exporting the document closed captions, but it won't tell you the video output time code that correlates to those slides. So if you wanted to hand generate the SRT file you could - but you'd have to do the timings yourself. By that point it would be easier to just upload the video to YouTube and add CC to it there.

    Sorry not to give perfect answers here - but I wanted to at least provide some perspective.

    --Allen

    Spamhunter
    Inspiring
    February 2, 2018

    Allen, are CC exports from Captivate not importable to other Adobe software such as Premiere Pro, After Effects or Audition? If they insist on digging their heels in on the principle of non-compatibility with the most generic subtitle formats, it would seem to be a no-brainer that the Adobe environment should be capable of communicating within its own software family.

    RodWard
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 2, 2018

    Not all families are good at communicating with each other...