Kaltura is the cloud-based video management system behind My Media and Media Gallery, which are Canvas LTI tools. Note that:

• Kaltura appears in some places in My Media and Media Gallery and in the company's documentation and user guides.
• Course Gallery is how you access Media Gallery in Canvas. 

The Kaltura Video App for Canvas User Guide has full instructions on using My Media and Media Gallery. The instructions here are specific to Virginia Tech. To see other Kaltura topics, please click on the guide for your role:

• Video Content Management - Using My Media and Media Gallery (for Instructors)
• Video Content Management - Using My Media and Media Gallery (for Students)

This article discusses how to caption videos using Kaltura.

Contents

• About Captioning
  
  • Restrictions
  • Machine (Automatic Speech Recognition) Captions
  • Professional (Human) Captions
• Ordering Machine or Professional Captions
• Editing Captions
• Hiding Captions
• Downloading Captions
• Viewing, Searching, and Downloading Transcripts
• Getting Help

About Captioning

Restrictions

• Captions can only be ordered for videos Virginia Tech users added to My Media and Media Gallery themselves. 
  
  • To caption YouTube, Vimeo, or other videos, email captioning@vt.edu.
• Video owners and co-editors can order and edit captions.
  
  • Owners can delegate ordering and editing captions by adding collaborators to their media. 

Machine (Automatic Speech Recognition) Captions

For all videos uploaded to My Media, machine captions are generated using automatic speech recognition (ASR) software and are 70-90% accurate.

Machine captions are free for all Virginia Tech affiliates’ media. They take about 30 minutes to generate, but the exact processing time depends on video length and number of captioning requests. Captions can be edited for accuracy in My Media or Media Gallery. 

• All Zoom cloud recordings copied to My Media have automatic machine captions as of December 21, 2020.
• To learn more, see Post Production Captioning.

Professional (Human) Captions

Professional captions are human-generated and are 99% accurate.

Central funds are available for professional captioning of instructional materials for (1) students with a documented need, (2) for videos that will be used for multiple semesters, and (3) videos less than 45 minutes in length. Centrally-funded professional captioning requests must be approved by the Accessible Technologies group in Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies. Approval takes one business day. After approval, professional captions are produced in five business days or fewer.

To upload videos to Kaltura, see Adding Videos to My Media. Then see Ordering Machine or Professional Captions below to learn how to submit a captioning request.

If you have videos outside of Kaltura that require professional captioning, please contact captioning@vt.edu.

Top of page

Ordering Machine or Professional Captions

Starting Dec. 21, 2020, all Zoom cloud recordings, which are automatically copied to My Media, will have machine (automatic speech recognition) captions. See Editing Captions or Hiding Captions if you want to edit or turn them off. 

1. In My Media or Media Gallery, browse for the media entry and click the video thumbnail or title.
2. From the Actions drop-down, click +Caption & Enrich.
   
3. Scroll down to Order Captions & Enrichment Services. Select Machine or Professional.
   
4. After you submit the request, a pop-up will say that your request has been received. 
   
5. Check caption order status under Existing Requests. 
   
6. You will receive an email when your captions are ready.
7. If captioning failed, you can re-request captions.

Top of page

Editing Captions

Machine captions are generated with automatic speech recognition software and are 70-90% accurate. Video owners and co-publishers can edit captions in Kaltura's captioning editing tool.

• Video owners and co-editors can order and edit captions. Owners can delegate ordering and editing captions by adding collaborators to their media. 
• See also Hiding captions.

1. In My Media or Media Gallery, browse to the media entry and click the video thumbnail or title.
2. From the Actions drop-down, click +Caption & Enrich. You'll see a list of captions for that video under Existing Requests. 
3. Click the pencil icon next to the caption file you want to edit. The Closed Captions Editor will open. 
   
4. The Closed Captions Editor has:
   
   • The video on the right.
   • The caption edit box on the left.
   • Add speaker and search captions at the top.
     
5. To edit captions and timing, hover over the caption then click on one of the text boxes.
   
   1. Start time.
   2. End time.
   3. Edit caption.
   4. Add new caption.
   5. Delete caption.
      
6. Click Save to publish the edited captions and sync them with the video.
   
7. Refresh My Media, play the video, and check your work. 

Top of page

Hiding Captions

if a video has captions but you don't want them to show, you can hide them. 

1. Go to a video My Media or Media Gallery and click Actions, then Edit.
2. Click the Captions tab. 
3. Next to the captions file, click the Don't Show On Player (video player) icon. Changes are saved automatically.
   

Top of page

Downloading Captions

Captions exist in a separate SRT file and don't automatically download/upload with the associated video.

• To play a video with captions on your computer, download the video and the captions file and put it in the same folder as the video. Most video players will recognize and include the captions or you can select the captions file when enabling the captions.
• To upload a video and captions to a platform like YouTube, download the captions then follow the platform's instructions.

To download captions: 

1. Go to a video My Media or Media Gallery and click Actions, then Edit. 
2. Click the Captions tab. 
3. Next to the captions file, click the download icon.
   
4. To play the video and captions on your computer, put the captions file in the same folder as the video. 
   • If the video does not automatically pick up your captions, go to where you would enable the captions in the media player and choose the downloaded captions file.
5. To upload the captions to a video hosting platform, follow the platform's instructions. YouTube's instructions are here: Add subtitles and captions.  

Top of page

Viewing, Searching, and Downloading Transcripts

• Captions appear on screen and are synced with the video.
• Transcripts have the same words, but in a separate, searchable document. 

1. From My Media or Media Gallery, click a video thumbnail or title to go to the video.
2. Click play to start your video.
3. You will now see the Show Transcript button in the upper right hand corner of the video player. Click on the button to open your transcript.
   
4. Search your transcripts by entering a key term in the Search in Transcript box to find where in the video the term appears.
   
5. To download your transcripts, click on the three dots.
   
6. Then click Download transcript and save the transcript to your computer.
   

Top of page

Getting Help

For instructions on resolving common issues with Kaltura, please click on the guide for your role: 

• Video Content Management - Troubleshooting My Media and Media Gallery (for Instructors)
• Video Content Management - Troubleshooting My Media and Media Gallery (for Students)

If you need help with My Media, Media Gallery, or Kaltura in general: 

• Watch videos on using Kaltura on the Kaltura Video Hub.
• Search for topics in the Kaltura Knowledge Base. 
• See the Kaltura Video App for Canvas User Guide.

If you still have questions: 

• For Kaltura in Canvas or at video.vt.edu, go to the 4Help Portal, log in, and click Get Help. Specify where you are having the issue and include the video name, ID, and/or URL if applicable.
• For questions about intellectual property, contact your department chair or the University Council. 

Top of page