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SPND 423: Creating Basic Video Captions using QuickTime Pro
Creating captions using QuickTime Pro is easier than ever, eliminating the need for third party
software. All you will need is QuickTime Pro, your video clip saved as a *.mov file, and your
favorite text editing program.
1. Using QuickTime, open the video clip: fainting_goats.mov
Can download from:
2. Save a copy to your Desktop as: fainting_goats1.mov
Close your original movie file.
Just pretend that your have already transcribed your audio for this exercise, and we will use a
text file that is ready to work with. However when transcribe your audio from scratch, the
steps are:
3. Transcribing your Audio
a. Use your favorite text editor. If transcribing in Word, save the file as text only.
b. When transcribing, do not double space. Type single space, only inserting a return
where you will wish QuickTime to start a new timing (more on this later).
c. Next, you will need to transcribe your audio. As you transcribe the audio, follow the
natural flow of the speaker. Insert a return where the speaker naturally takes a breath,
or at the end of a sentence.
d. If there are sound effects or music, make note in the transcript as:
If source of sound off-screen: [horn honking] beep-beep
If source of sound obvious to action with car on-screen: beep-beep
e. As you are transcribing, save your work as a Text (*.txt) file.
For our purposes, with will work with a file that has been transcribed.
4. Creating your Text Track Frames
a. In QuickTime Go to File > Open File > and go to the folder where your prepared text
transcript is located.
Open file: faintingtranscript_1.txt
b. You will notice that the QuickTime “Open File” dialog file type is set to Movie.
Open this drop-down box and select “All Files”. You will now see your text file.
c. Select your text file and click on Open.
d. QuickTime will create a
text movie, and you will
see text against a black
screen. The text is laid out
as a series of text-only
slides. QuickTime creates
one video frame (or slide)
for each paragraph of text.
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SPND 423: Creating Basic Video Captions using QuickTime Pro
Play the movie and make sure everything looks the way you want it to and that no
captions are cut off at the bottom of the movie. I suggest leaving room at the bottom
because some computers display the text larger than others, and the captions may be
cut off at the bottom.
5. Creating Your Text Track Transcript
a. Next, go to File > Export >
b. The dialog that opens should default to the location from which you opened your text
file. If not, be sure you navigate back to that folder.
c. Options for this dialog box should be set to the options below. If not, select the
“Options” button to change the category:
Export: Text to Text
Use: Text with Descriptors
d. The dialog will confirm that you wish to overwrite the existing file – save as
transcript_test.txt – and it will then proceed to Export the new text file. The amount
of time this will take will vary on the size of your file. You have now created your
Text Track.
NOTE: If you encounter an error when trying to export, be sure that your
original text file is closed, and try again.
e. Once completed you can go back to your text editor, and open the transcript.
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SPND 423: Creating Basic Video Captions using QuickTime Pro
Working with the Text Track
Now the fun begins!
1. When you open your Text Track, in your word processing program you will notice that new
parameters have been added to your file. QuickTime input its own QuickTime text formatting
called “descriptors”. These descriptors determine the type of font, color of text, color of
background, to name a few. Most importantly, it inputs default timings for each line of text.
2. TimeStamps
Before each line of text is a timestamp. You will notice that timings are already in place, each
new line defaulting about every 2 seconds.
3. We are going to use a preformatted transcript that we will modify slightly to fit the video. To
avoid confusion, between work files, go ahead and close: transcript_test.txt
a. Open the file named: faintingtranscript_exercise.txt
b. Make the following edits:
i. Change {plain} to {bold}
ii. Change {size:12} to {size:16}
iii. Change {width:160} to {width:476}
iv. Insert a new timing line after [00:00:00.000] by adding a return and type in
Type in
[00:00:03.000]
[Happy Music]
v. At “Most of the animals on this petting farm”
Set to timing to 5 seconds:
vi. At “on Maui, Hawaii are sweet”
Set timing to 7 seconds:
c. Save the edited file to your Desktop as: faintingtranscript_exercise1.txt
f. Once the transcription is complete and saved as a text file, the next step is to open/go
to QuickTime Pro.
d. Go to File > Open File > and go to the folder where your text transcript is located.
Open file: faintingtranscript_exercise1.txt
If you get an encoding error, check your timings in the transcript file carefully. You may
have timings out of sequence or a text character that is invalid.
e. Your new text file will open as a QT text movie, the same width as the video, with
bold white text against a back background.
4. Adding the Text Track to the Video
You are now working with two movies (one the primary movie and the second is the Text
Track):
fainting_goats1.mov
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SPND 423: Creating Basic Video Captions using QuickTime Pro
faintingtranscript_exercise1.txt
a. On the text track movie faintingtranscript_exercise1.txt, go to Edit > Select All.
Next go to Edit > Copy
b. Now working with your movie file “fainting_goats1.mov”, take the In and Out heads
and position the Out head to the far right of the playhead area. This selects the entire
movie.
c. Go to Edit > Add Selection and Scale. This will add your Text Track to the original
movie. It will be positioned at the top of the movie screen.
d. Now rewind your movie and check your caption synchronization. If the timings of
the text are off, Undo your Add to remove the text track.
e. Go back and make edits to your *.txt file using your word processor. Repeat the steps
to recreate your text track movie and add to your original movie file.
5. If you saved your original movie file with the text track, but now have to edit the text
track.
a. Go to Window > Show Movie Properties > Highlight the entire text track > Delete
b. Whoops – didn’t mean to do that? Close the Show Movie Properties window and go
to Edit > Undo
6. Your text track is okay, but you don’t want it at the top but at the bottom.
a. Go to Window > Show Movie Properties > Highlight the Text Track > Select the
Visual Setting tab
b. Find the area entitled “Offset”.
c. To offset the text track to the bottom of the playback area, locate the Transformation
areas and set the right offset box to 360. Now click the mouse in the left offset that
displays 0, but don’t change that number. You will notice that the text track has now
moved to the bottom of the movie, with the top edge of the text box just below the
actual movie playback area. If you change the number in the left offset box, you will
shift the position of the text box to the right.
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SPND 423: Creating Basic Video Captions using QuickTime Pro
7. Finalize
You have synchronized your captions, positioned your text box, and now you just need to
save your final video. Identify this file as your final version, careful not to overwrite your
original work files.
Congratulations – that is how you create captions using QuickTime Pro!
Descriptors
The descriptors located in the the transcript are:
{QTtext} This is required at the start of any file that has descriptors
or timeStamps. If this is not the first thing in the file, the
file is assumed to be normal text.
{font:Geneva} The default is Geneva, but it can be changed to any font that is
easy to read. Let’s change it to Verdana
{plain} This is the fontStyle and indicates that the text is plain. You
can change this to bold if the default is hard to read.
{size:12} Adjusts the size of the text in points. 12 point is generally too
small to read, so you will want to increase the size to 14 points.
{textColor: 65535, 65535, TextColor identifies the color of the text, and each set of 5-
65535} digit numbers represents a color saturation level for Red,
Green, and Blue.
65535 is the representation for White, as 65535 is the highest
number equaling the saturation of that color. So, for example,
if you wanted to make the text blue, you would set the numbers
to 0, 0, 65535. You can find a short list of RGB colors at the
Apple website:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=54200&coll=ap
{backColor: 0, 0, 0} This represents the Background color of your text box. It
defaults to Black, and we will keep this for now.
{justify:center} The text will justify to the center, however, for most captioning
we will change this to left justification.
{timeScale:1000} Think of this as the fractional part of a second.
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SPND 423: Creating Basic Video Captions using QuickTime Pro
The number of digits in the last value of a timestamp is
determined by the timescale. If {timeScale:10}, then
the timestamp for 7.5 seconds would be ' [00:00:07.5]
'. But If {timeScale:1000} , the same 7.5 seconds
would be written as ' [00:00:07.500] '. The timeScale
cannot go over 1000.
You will notice that the default timeScale for the QText
file is 00:00:00:000, but the timeScale displayed when
you play back a QT movie is timeScale: 100, or,
00:00:00. For now you don’t have to adjust the default
timeScale setting in the QText file.
{width:160} The text track width is set to 160 as a default. Always set
the width to the same width of the movie where the
QText will be imported. Change this number to 476.
You can find the width of your movie by going to your
movie in QT, go to Window > Show Movie Info.
{height:76} Will set the text track height to 160 as a default. A value
of zero will set the height to the best fit for the contents.
{timeStamps:absolute} TimeStamps can be absolute or relative.
Absolute show the first timestamp set at 00:00:00:000. This
can be adjusted to begin where the audio starts.
Relative timestamps show the time relative to the previous
sample. This is helpful if you are creating movie chapters.
{language:0} Text tracks can be set to a specific language. The ordinal
(numeric) value of the language is used instead of the
actual name. Example: {language:11} sets the language
of the track to Japanese.
{textEncoding:0} A default descriptor that allows QT to read your QText file.
Although there is little information I could find on how this
descriptor works, I can tell you that changing this number can
render your transcript useless.
{textBox: 0,0,0,0} This indicates where you will want the text box positioned on
the final video.
On the MAC you will notice that the QText file will have
textBox positions inserted before each line of text. This may or
may not be the case if you are using Windows. In either case,
for the purpose of this exercise they can be removed.
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