Forum Discussion
How to get custom vtt subtitle or caption file to show up in the transcript window and be searchable
Ok... I finally figured out what was going on after lots of trial/error and closer looking at the problematic VTT files.
It turns out Stream will not parse the VTT file uploaded in the caption section and turn it into the transcript if there is a line in the file that has no elapsed duration/gap between the time codes. For example like this:
00:16:24.490 --> 00:16:24.490 keep falling apart.
If you change the time codes so there is a time gap between them, it works fine. Like this:
00:16:24.490 --> 00:16:24.491 keep falling apart.
So for the example VTT file you sent, there is actually 2 lines in the file where there is no gap in the time codes. I updated these 4 lines in your file to ensure there is gap and the subsequent line also starts at the new time. Once I did that your custom VTT file works correctly and shows up as the transcript. (See the attached file below that is the fixed VTT, to try yourself.)
00:16:24.490 --> 00:16:24.491 keep falling apart. 00:16:24.491 --> 00:16:26.890 THE WITNESS: 417? 00:41:07.740 --> 00:41:07.741 read it. 00:41:07.741 --> 00:41:21.720 (Requested portion of record read.)
I'll file a bug on our side in Stream to fix this issue so that our parsing logic still works even if there are lines in the VTT with the beginning/ending time codes the same. I don't know how easy/hard this will be to fix on our side.
MicrosoftYou can upload your own VTT file and have it show up in the transcript window on the side of the video player and be searchable. You just need to upload the custom VTT you created/edited in the "Captions" section not the "Subtitle" section. I'm guessing you are uploading them into the subitltes section.
Here is what you would do.
Captions > Autogenerate a caption file > uncheck this box
A new link will show up under this section "Upload a caption file", click it
In the pop-up pick the language your file is for
Click "select file" or drag / drop your custom VTT file on to the pop-up.
OK
Now your custom VTT file will be shown in the transcript, indexed, and searchable.
In addition if you don't want to hand craft your VTT file, you could just edit the autogenerated one. We now have a edit button on the transcript window for owners of the video where they can then edit the text of the transcript inline as the video is playing.
I'm encouraged to know that this should work. I've followed these directions and still don't have the option to turn on the transcription panel for this video and caption. Again, if I let it auto-generate the captions I do have the option. My thought is that either I am missing another setting somewhere, it's not working as it should, or there may be some admin setting my IT department needs to change?
- Marc Mroz
Matt Cannady - I think I might have reproduced the issue, but I need to try a few more things. Can you give me the exact flow you did? What video language did you pick when it was uploaded? Did you have the autogenerate caption file checked at upload? When did you upload the VTT File?
I think there might be an issue if you don't let it autogenerate the caption file on it's own that when you upload the custom caption file it doesn't think it can have a transcript. I'm still testing a few thing though to see if I can narrow down when this happens.
Marc Mroz - I dragged in the video, checked English as the language. Set permissions to be a specific channel only. I may have uploaded the vtt file as Subtitles instead of Captions.
I'm attempting this again. Following the above steps, I then disabled autogenerate and am browsing to the vtt with Select file as English. People and Comments are left on. Once it's done being uploaded I'll publish.
Marc Mroz - I downloaded an autocaption vtt for a different video, then reuploaded that video with the autogenerated vtt as the english caption and the transciption box is present immediately.
This may be due to the tagged text in the MS auto vtt? Each time coded line of text in the autogenerated file has a line of text that appears to be an ID, possibly to track changes in your dictionary system? It may be something else though. Is this "pre-line" necessary in the custom caption uploads for transcription and search?
MS autogenerated caption line:
ad5b06c8-5bed-4975-b4e9-9683811d8b22
00:00:19.650 --> 00:00:24.380
start another way what we're really talking about today is reconstruction about present-dayConverted smi to vtt:
00:06:49.730 --> 00:06:52.070
of view closed, anyway, I figured I'd just go throughAs a side note, the attempt I referenced earlier to upload the same problem video but with autogenerated transcription immediately gives me the option of opening the transcription box, but notifies me that the transcription is not ready yet, as it should.
- Marc Mroz
Matt Cannady - Your user has an E5 license? Only E5 or Stream Plan 2 users will see the transcript on the side of the video when one is available?
If you upload another video and you say the video language is English and have the "autogenerate captions file" after waiting a while for the transcript to generate, when you go to the player page do you see the transcript window on the right side of the video?
If you do see the transcript it means you are E5 or Stream Plan 2. I'm not sure why when you upload your own VTT as a caption file it doesn't show the transcript window. It does for me when I test this. If the above works for you, then maybe there is something wrong on our side or there is some corner case bug. If you open up a support ticket we can get someone looking at it, if support can't figure it out they'll escalate it up to us in the product group for deeper investigation.
Marc Mroz - I'm trying to find out my license level now. I do see the transcript when I auto-generate captions but not when I upload my own.
As to your second paragraph, that is correct.
How do I open a support ticket to you?
