How to add quality subtitles to your cloud and VOD Dacast videos?

Dacast is one of the most complete solutions to do broadcasting, streaming and video hosting for companies. It provides various video services to create a complete OTT platform and monetize your videos as VOD.

The video technology is also outstanding, and its video player provides a powerful and reliable experience for users. It especially considers user limitations in terms of digital accessibility.

If you want to go further in the delivery of your content, knowing how to process subtitles on your cloud and VOD videos is also crucial.

As subtitling experts, we have asses the subtitling options available on Dacast. We give you our guide to speed up your work processes. Hang tight!

Why add subtitles to your Dacast Cloud video?

Dacast is a well-known solution for capturing and broadcasting live events, conferences and courses. In addition to its HTML5 and RTMP video player, it also included embedding features and a powerful API that enables high quality video. And many organizations such as media, universities, and large corporations have already widely adopted it.

It is also ahead of its time with its video accessibility policy. Its video technology includes contrast, voice control, and autoplay, all in accordance with regulation 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Similarly, by subtitling your Dacast videos, your content can become much more accessible to any audience. Subtitling your videos allows you to increase playback and engagement rates, allowing soundless playback and improving readability.

Here are the interesting benefits to be expected from adding subtitles:

• You open your audience to the diversity of languages and nationalities in the world.
• You make your content accessible to the hearing impaired and people with comprehension problems.
• 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! Here is a step-by-step method to get the job done.

Dacast videos captioning: What are the ways to proceed?

Dacast provides few subtitling options for your hosted videos and VOD. Yet, the interface is still compatible with VTT and SRT files, and it's easy to add them. You can do this in three different ways:

• 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 option, we warn you, it's a hard job. Transcription requires a lot of time and very specific skills, which are those of transcription professionals. One should not underestimate the difficulty of making quality subtitles, as you have to respect several rules and standards.

For the second option, automatic subtitling solutions can greatly facilitate the work, but still require human intervention.

For the third option, subtitling experts can take care of your video projects with guaranteed quality results. Here we present our professional subtitling solution, Checksub, which combines the advantage of an automatic generator with the collaboration of experts.

How can I generate professional subtitles on Dacast?

As speech recognition technologies have emerged, 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 platform in collaboration with subtitles expert (agencies and freelancers). It provides 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

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

1# Upload your Dacast 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 10 minutes 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 Dacast
• When you are satisfied with the transcript, you can download the . By adding it to the Dacast interface, your subtitles will appear immediately on your VOD and cloud videos.

3# Retrieve and send the VTT file to Dacast

When you are satisfied with the transcript, you can download the VTT or SRT file. By adding it to the Dacast interface, your subtitles will appear immediately on your VOD and cloud videos.

How to use professional subtitlers services?

As you have noticed, using Checksub by yourself saves a lot of time, but still requires a lot of effort and accuracy.

We are well aware of this, which is why you can contact our subtitling service directly from our interface. Professional subtitlers and translators will then take care of your video projects. Do not hesitate to ask us for more information!

How do I encode subtitles in my Dacast VOD video?

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

Here's how to make your video content accessible to everyone on Dacast. We hope that the shootings will now be running at full speed!