Video Captioning Basics for Compliance Requirements
The following video captioning basics will explain how to choose the right accuracy level and the best captioning provider according to your needs.
Choosing an Accuracy Level
The first item on the video captioning basics to-do list is to figure out what quality level you need for your captions. Various considerations may direct your decision-making, such as budget, time, accessibility, and workforce.
Captions can be added to videos using free software or professional captioning companies. These each have their level of guaranteed accuracy. Unless your company has a strict set of needs, professional captioning is the recommended route. For some, professional captioning is the only way to proceed because of legal requirements for your industry.
Machine Captions
It’s common, and sensical, for a lot of people to start with machine transcriptions. For starter’s, they’re substantially less expensive, at $.01 per minute of file whereas human transcriptions begin at $.85 per minute.
Machine transcriptions can also be turned around extremely fast through web app’s like our Self Serve solution. Uploading a video and receiving a machine transcription takes mere minutes. And since these transcriptions can be done with our bulk upload and cost is at a minimum, you can get greater search/indexing breadth. And while the lack of full accuracy can impact the strength of your SEO, machine transcription does capture enough accuracy to aid in platform search.
In terms of accessibility compliance, auto-captions, and automatic speech recognition (ASR) do not meet federal requirements for accessibility. These types of captions are great for search but do not generate complaint captions. If you want to reach your hearing-impaired audience or are subject to ADA and Section 504 and 508 requirements, you need 99% accurate captions.
Professional Captions
For a higher return on your media investment, the best practice for captioning is to use a captioning provider that can guarantee a high level of accuracy. The higher the quality of the captions, the higher your viewer satisfaction will be, and the lower the costs will be in the long run.
Ninety-nine percent accurate captions are essential for viewer engagement and crucial for accessibility compliance. Accessible technology guidelines have been developed for use by government agencies, educational institutions, and others. These guidelines, such as the WCAG, define measurable standards for giving all users equal access to all online information.
From an ethical standpoint, complying with these guidelines prevents discrimination based on disability. At the professional or business level, complying with the guidelines is a means to commercial success.
If you are not an organization that is required by law (ADA, Rehabilitation Act, FCC, CVAA, etc.) to provide captions with the highest accuracy, it may still be in your company’s best interest to provide compliance level captions.
Choosing a Video Captioning Provider
It is essential to evaluate your company’s needs before selecting a captioning provider. Ask the following questions.
Regarding your videos:
- Volume: How many minutes/hours of video do we have?
- Turnaround Time: How fast do we need the captions to be rendered? Do we need them in a few hours, or can we wait a few days? Do we want the ability to specify different turnaround times for different videos?
- Quality Level: Do we need different quality levels such as 70% machine-generated for search, 95% accurate for internal notes, or near-perfect for published transcripts or captions?
- Difficulty: Do we have videos with poor sound quality, multiple speakers, heavy accents, or technical/rare terms?
- Language: Do we need videos to be transcribed in multiple languages or translated into any other languages?
Regarding your intended uses:
- Integration: Do we need the caption provider integrated into our custom workflow via a comprehensive API?
- Video Hosting: Do we use a video platform like YouTube, Kaltura, BrightCove, Panopto, etc. that already has an integration with a captioning service?
- Caption Editor: Do we want to have the power to edit the captions ourselves to make minor corrections?
- Video Intelligence: Do we want to create high-quality video tags for Youtube, Google search including topics, keywords, or Google Adwords?
- Interactive Transcript: Do we want viewers to be able to search and navigate videos through transcripts or tags?
- Video SEO: Do we want our videos to be ranked and discovered by YouTube or Google search?
- Customer Service: Do we want reliable daily support for questions or issues?
- Account Management: Do we need a service that can provide access and support for multiple departments at our organization?
The answers to these questions will help you narrow your search and find a provider who is the best match for your needs.
It’s easy to get started
At cielo24, we offer Enterprise level captioning, as well as a self-service web app called Self Serve.
Our Self Serve web app allows you to get started on transcriptions and captions immediately at less than $1/minute. We have built our Enterprise plans around your unique business needs to help satisfy more complex and/or more significant amounts of media that need captioning or transcription. Through Enterprise, you also have access to our full suite of video and audio data solutions.
For more information on our video transcription accuracy, captioning and video intelligence solutions, contact us online or call us at 1-855-243-5624. Try video transcription on your own using our easy, affordable, and reliable web app! Let your message be heard (or seen and read!). For more information on our video marketing, transcription, captioning, and video intelligence solutions.
Lastly, knowing your specific video captioning needs is crucial to finding the right provider.
We hope these video captioning basics ease the captioning process. For more information on captioning, check out these resources:
- ROI of Video Captions and Audio Transcripts: A Guide to Generating Media Revenue
- 2019 State & Federal Accessibility Guidelines and Laws for Education
- Best Practices: Attracting New Students Through Accessible eLearning Programs
- WCAG 2.1 Guidelines
