In today’s digital landscape, making content accessible is vital for reaching a diverse audience. Whether your viewers are hard of hearing or prefer watching videos without sound, closed captions are an excellent feature to enhance accessibility.
Adobe Premiere Pro offers an array of features to help create these captions, including a speech-to-text function to streamline the process.
Why Should You Transcribe Your Videos and Make Captions?
Adding captions and subtitles to your videos comes with numerous benefits, particularly if you plan on distributing your work widely. Let’s explore some key reasons for incorporating captions:
- Accessibility for viewers who are hard of hearing.
- Enabling people to watch without audio, increasing your chances of engagement on platforms like YouTube.
- Translating content into various languages to reach a broader audience.
- Enhancing SEO by indexing your transcription, making it more searchable online.
Alongside these benefits, it’s crucial to ensure that the communication within your video is clear and understandable, no matter the type of content you create.
How to Create Speech-to-Text Captions in Premiere Pro
Recent advancements in speech-to-text technology have greatly improved its accuracy. While several specialized apps exist, Premiere Pro’s built-in feature stands out for its simplicity.
Before you begin, make sure your video is fully edited to avoid inaccuracies in the captions due to changes in video length.
To start the transcription process, navigate to the Text window, select the Transcript tab, and click on the Transcribe sequence button.
You’ll be prompted to adjust settings such as the selection of audio tracks. If your video contains multiple audio tracks, mute those with sound effects or music before transcribing. Once prepared, start the transcription, which might take a few minutes based on the video’s length and your computer’s performance.
Once transcribed, you’ll notice that some words may be incorrect or improperly punctuated. You can manually correct these errors by double-clicking on any segment of the transcription.
To verify the accuracy of the transcription, playing the sequence will highlight corresponding words in the transcript. After making corrections, click the CC button in the Transcript tab to adjust settings like Maximum length in characters, Minimum duration in seconds, and choose between Single or Double lines.
You can further customize captions’ appearance, such as font, size, color, and create a Track Style for future use.
How to Write Captions Manually in Premiere Pro
While speech-to-text is convenient, shorter or unscripted videos might benefit from manual captioning.
To begin manual captioning, switch to the Captions workspace from the workspace options above or through Windows > Text.
In the Text window, go to the Captions tab and click Create new caption track, or use the shortcut [Ctrl + Alt + A] or [Opt + Cmd + A].
Select the track Format and Style, then click OK. A new track appears in the Timeline panel. Add your footage and align the playhead with the speaker’s waveform. In the Text panel, click the plus icon to add a new caption or use [Ctrl + Alt + C] or [Opt + Cmd + C] to transcribe the dialogue.
Continue adding and timing captions until the sequence is complete. You can trim each caption in the Timeline panel for optimal display duration.
Customizing the look of your captions is straightforward, with numerous styles and templates available in Premiere’s Essential Graphics panel.
How to Export Captions in Premiere
Beyond embedding captions in your final video, you also have the option to export them as a separate sidecar file.
During project export, scroll to the Caption settings in the Export Settings menu. You can choose to burn in closed captions, export a sidecar file, or exclude captions entirely.
Premiere supports multiple sidecar file formats such as SRT, STL, XML, and SCC, depending on your requirements.
The Embedded option is generally reserved for specific uses, such as local TV broadcast standards.
How to Import Captions in Premiere
You can also import captions from an external file into your project.
To do this, click on the Import captions from file button in the Text panel, locate your file, and click Open.
Select the preferred Caption Format and Style, and choose a Start Point before clicking OK. Your imported captions will now appear in the project, ready for use.