Forum Discussion
Matt Cannady
May 03, 2018Copper Contributor
How to get custom vtt subtitle or caption file to show up in the transcript window and be searchable
Marc Mroz, We've been looking at using Stream for internal technical videos and were also disappointed with the auto-transcription. We now have a hand crafted transcription file to use with our video...
- May 04, 2018
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.
Matt Cannady
May 22, 2018Copper Contributor
We had our first business case of importing an internal transcription and after editing the converted vtt to ensure time gaps, Stream wouldn't enable transcription for our video... I edited the vtt in notepad. Is there a different application you would suggest? Could you help me out again by reviewing the attached file?
I compared my file to the one you fixed for us prior and noticed it did not have WEBVTT as the first line. I added that and blank line after to match yours and it worked. When adding a transcription file in the edit page, the Apply button doesn't enable unless you mess with another setting like turning comments or people on/off. I tried both changing a setting then clicking Apply, and not changing a setting and clicking up to My Videos then selecting the video I was working on and both produce the desired result of the transcription file being applied. At this point I would have to assume that editing the video, adding a custom transcription, then clicking cancel would also work.... but that is counter-intuitive. Perhaps you could look into having the Apply button enable after only adding a caption.
Thanks again for your help.
_Mits_
Apr 17, 2019Copper Contributor
I tried adding the WEBVTT line at the top of my .vtt subtitle file, as mentioned in your post, and it worked for one file, but then I tried it again with another video just to make sure it wasn't a fluke and it didn't work.
I've been finding that Stream is displaying captions or transcripts inconsistently; sometimes the transcript shows up, but then sometimes I get a message saying "Audio transcripts aren't quite ready yet. Check back soon."
Just wondering why I might be getting inconsistent results
- _Mits_Apr 17, 2019Copper Contributor
I think I spoke too soon, haha!
I did try reformatting but, in the transcript window, I'm still getting the same message, "Audio transcripts aren't quite ready yet. Check back soon."
It seems to be alternating where one video will work, the next will not, and then the next will, and then the next will not and so on.
- _Mits_Apr 17, 2019Copper Contributor
That seems to have worked! I had a point where I meant to have a comma, corrected that, and now it seems to be working consistently!
- Matt CannadyApr 17, 2019Copper Contributor
All I can think of is to make sure your time codes all have at least one second difference (or more) for start and stop for each line. If any of your lines have an invalid time separation it seems to break it. Not sure if the developers have done anything about this one yet. Good luck!