How to add automatic subtitles to your Vimeo Videos like a pro?

After YouTube, Vimeo is the second most popular video hosting platform on the net. It gives access to a wide audience of amateurs and video experts.

Compact, ergonomic and ad-free, its video player is also a practical solution to embed videos on your website or emails. It especially provides many video-accessibility-related features.

Beside the interface adapted to people with visual impairments, it is for example quite simple to add subtitles to your video.

Let us guide you step by step on how to subtitle your video on Vimeo. You'll see, there's nothing difficult about it!

Vimeo subtitles: reasons to add them

Vimeo is a great hosting platform to make your content visible to a large audience. The platform generates an optimal video experience without the interruption of ads and within an aesthetic and user-friendly video player.

Vimeo has also worked a lot on accessibility criteria, in particular by complying with the standards set by the WCAG.

But your Vimeo content can gain even more impact by using Vimeo the built-in subtitling options. Adding subtitles will increase the playing and engagement rates, via sound-off watching and improve readability.

But there are other equally interesting reasons:

• You open your video to the diversity of languages and nationalities around the world.
• You make your content accessible to the hearing impaired and those with comprehension problems.
• It improves greatly your site's SEO optimization
• You give visual support that encourages users to react or discuss directly with your message.

With all these reasons, subtitles are a huge opportunity! Here's how to take it step by step.

What are the ways to subtitle your Vimeo videos?

As Vimeo does not include an automatic subtitling solution, there is only one way to subtitle your videos: upload a VTT or SRT file on the Vimeo interface. But the creation of these subtitling files can be done in three ways :

• By doing it by yourself, from a manual speech-to-text transcription
• Using an automatic subtitle generator
• By calling on a subtitling expert

As for the first alternative, we might warn you right away, it's a complicated job. Transcription requires a lot of time and very specific skills, which are those of transcription professionals. There are numerous rules to respect and even standards to follow.

Automatic subtitling solutions, on the other hand, make the work easier, yet not without some work to optimize and adapt the result.
This is why we present here our professional subtitling solution Checksub, which combines both an automatic generator and the collaboration of experts.

How to generate captions on Vimeo?

As speech recognition technologies have been generalized, there is a growing number of subtitling solutions available on the net. Yet, the solutions dedicated to professionals are the most reliable for high-volume, high-demand projects.

We present here our subtitling platform made in collaboration with subtitle experts (agencies and freelancers). It integrates useful 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 quick and easy way to proceed with our subtitling solution.

1# Upload your Vimeo 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 translation if necessary.

You have 1 hour of video 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 do it effectively:

• 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 Vimeo

When you are satisfied with the transcript, you can download the VTT file. By adding it to the Vimeo interface, your subtitles will then display immediately.

Calling a subtitle expert on the interface

As you may have noticed, managing the interface by yourself is not the easiest thing to do. Fortunately, if you don't have much 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!

Transcription of Vimeo videos: the benefits

Before you leave, we have another piece of advice for you. A textual transcript of your video is a good way to engage your users. You may give it a go, it's very convenient!

Here are some benefits :

• You provide a visual support that users can more easily understand and memorize, and that they can quote and directly share.
• You improve the SEO of your site with transcripts included in the pages
• You can turn your videos directly into notes and blog posts
• You make your content accessible to an audience with comprehension problems.

Here's how to get the most out of your content! We hope it will help you boost your web content strategy!