How to put quality subtitles on your JW Player videos?

JW Player is one of the most powerful multiplatform video hosting solutions. Its format of video player is particularly adapted to deliver a quality experience on all supports and screens.

That's quite nice, you must admit!

But it also provides reliable features in terms of digital accessibility.
Besides enabling keyboard and voice commands, it is very easy to add subtitles to the interface.

As subtitle experts, we show you the different ways to add subtitles to your video on JW Player. We especially found a professional and productive way to get the job done.

Why put subtitles on your online JW player video?

JW Player, with its hosting and streaming service, has seduced many companies and media that need reliable, cross-platform video marketing solutions. Its video integration, data collection and tracking technology successfully maximizes video engagement and revenue.

But JW Player has also given a lot of thought to its video accessibility policy, to enable it to target all types of audiences. In particular, its video player complies with the standards established by the WCAG.

By putting subtitles on your JWPlayer videos, you boost your videos readability even more. Among other things, captioning your videos increases engagement and retention rates by improving the video playback experience.

Here are a few critical reasons to invest in it:

• You open your audience to the diversity of languages and nationalities around the world.
• You make your content accessible to the hearing impaired and people with comprehension challenges.
• You increase the visual impact of your videos.
• You provide visual support that encourages users to react or discuss directly with your message.

So the benefits are numerous! You have a step-by-step method to get started.

Subtitle JW Player videos: the ways to do it

Among all its playback features, JW Player unfortunately does not provide an automatic subtitling solution. However, you still have a way to add some: create and load a VTT file on the dedicated interface of the platform. But there are several ways to create this subtitling format :

• By creating it yourself, from a manual transcription of the audio
• Use of an automatic subtitle generator
• By calling on a subtitling professional

For the first alternative, we warn you that, it's a complicated job. Transcription requires a lot of time and very specific skills, which are those of transcription professionals. There are a number of rules and standards to comply to.

Automatic subtitling solutions, on the other hand, make the work easier, although with the need of extra human optimizations.

This is why we show you our professional subtitling solution, Checksub, which combines both an automatic generator and the collaboration of experts.

How can I generate professional subtitles on JW Player?

As speech recognition technologies have been generalized, a growing number of subtitling solutions are available on the Web. However, professional solutions are the most reliable for high-volume, high-demand projects.

We present here our subtitling platform in collaboration with professionals (agencies and freelancers). It includes essential features:

• An advanced speech recognition API
• A collaborative interface with subtitlers and translators to manage your video project
• An automatic translation engine to translate your video, with 128 different languages available.
• A powerful and easy-to-use online subtitle editor

This is the fastest and easiest way to proceed with our subtitling solution.

1# Upload your JWPlayer video on the interface

To get started, register on the Checksub platform. Select your content and indicate its original language. You can also choose from a wide range of languages to perform a translation if necessary.

You have 1 hour to test the platform. If this time is not enough time for your first video, you can buy credits at a low price.

The API will then perform the speech recognition and provide you with the result in a few minutes.

2# Check and optimize the result

When the result is ready, click on the language of your video and access the dedicated subtitle editor to check the synchronization.

Here are a few tips to optimize this task:

• Cut your sequences into 2 sentences of equal length. It's often easier to divide your text into sentences. Go to the setting button to "divide my text into sentences".
• Arrange the text sequences at the exact moment the speaker starts speaking. If the speaker is speaking fast, you can try to delete a few words but not the beginning or ending words.
• Always display the characters when the speaker's lips move (important for those who read with their lips).
• Be sure to display a subtitle at the beginning of a scene and erase it at the end of the scene.
• Repeat several readings by yourself to check the fluidity of your subtitles.

3# Retrieve and send the VTT file to JW Player

When you are satisfied with the transcript, you can download the ATV file. By adding it to the JWPlayer interface, your subtitles will appear immediately.

Using professional captioning services

As you have noticed, using Checksub by yourself saves a lot of time, but still requires a lot of effort and work. Fortunately, if you don't have a lot of time or if you have a big project, you can contact our subtitling service from our interface. Professional subtitlers and translators will then take care of your video projects. Don't hesitate to ask us for more information!

How do I add encoded subtitles to my JW Player video?

If you want to customize the formatting of your subtitles, you also have the possibility to encode your subtitles in your video. For this, you can also use our solution. Just press "Export" > "Video Exportation". You will then get all the tools you need to customize the appearance of your subtitles.

You now know how to make your video accessible to a large audience. It's up to you to boost the impact of your video campaigns!