Caption Editing

Caption Editing Overview

Acoustica lets you add captions that you can export as subtitles for video production software or as text transcripts.

The Caption Editor lets you edit captions that you can later export as subtitle files for video production or as transcribed text.

In addition to the caption text, captions can be associated with different Actors and each actor can be assigned a unique color.

Setting Up a Captioning Project

Captions are edited in the Caption Editor that you show or hide by choosing Caption Editor from the View menu. Alternatively, you can choose a window pane layout optimized for caption editing by choosing Caption Editing from the Factory Layouts in the View menu.

Before starting your captioning project, we recommend to add meta-data (such as titles) and select the language. If you want to use the automatic speech recognition engine, please make sure you select the correct language first.

To add metadata, click the Caption Metadata button outlined in red in the above image. This will open the Metadata dialog window, where you can fill out all the metadata for your project.

Adding Captions Manually

Adding captions is similar to how region markers are added:

• Select a region in the recording where you want a caption

• Press the "C" key on your keyboard

• The caption text field now receives keyboard focus and you can enter the caption text

• If you need to change the Actor, you can enter a new actor name or click the drop-down list to choose from one of the previously used actor names. You can quickly access the first 9 actors by pressing Ctrl and the digit inside the color indication for the actor

• Press the Enter key or click Apply to add the caption

In the above example image, two captions have been added in the red and green regions, corresponding to two captions for two actors, Jeff and Brenda. At the bottom of the interface, we can see the captions in the list, along with the associated actor and color.

Adding Captions Using Automatic Speech Recognition

To add captions with the Automatic Speech Recognition tool:

• Make sure you have selected the correct language in the caption editing properties (see Setting Up a Captioning Project above on this page).

• Select the part of the recording where you want a caption

• Click the magic wand button in the caption editor toolbar, outlined below in red.

You can click the Magic Wand Icon in the toolbar to use automatic speech recognition.

• The suggestion appears in the caption text field for your review

• If you need to change the Actor, you can enter a new actor name or click the drop-down list to choose from one of the previously used actor names. You can quickly access the first 9 actors by pressing Ctrl and the digit inside the color indication for the actor

• Press the Enter key or click Apply to add the caption

Modifying Captions

To modify the caption text or the selected actor of an existing caption:

• Click to select the caption you want to modify in the captions list

• Change the caption text or choose another actor

• Press the Enter key or click the Apply button to update the caption

If you want to modify the time region of the caption, you will need to unlock the caption by clicking the lock icon in the caption list first.

When unlocked, you can click and drag the start or end point of the caption directly in the waveform display. We recommend to lock the time region again by clicking the same lock icon when done in order to avoid accidental changes.

Deleting Captions

You can delete captions by selecting the caption entry in the caption list and either click the Delete button or press the delete key.

To delete all captions, you can select the New button. This will create a new set of captions, clearing all previous captions.

Exporting and Importing Captions

Captions are automatically saved and loaded as .captions files along with your audio files. You can also import captions from other caption files using the Import button in the caption editor toolbar. Similarly, you can export captions in a variety of output formats using the Export button.

The following export formats are supported:

• Acoustica Caption Files (.captions) – the proprietary caption file format that Acoustica uses

• SubRip File (.srt) – a common caption file format which is accepted by most video editing software for video sub-titling

• SubRip File with Color Codes (.srt) – same as normal SubRip files, but with HTML-style color codes for colored captions

• Transcription File (.rtf) – a rich text format file containing the transcription generator based on the captions

• EDIUS Marker File (.xml) – For Marker export to the EDIUS Video Editing application

• Text file (.txt) – Text file with the transcription encoded as UTF8