Caption Assistant help please

NickHope wrote on 2/7/2013, 4:32 AM
I have a voiceover script that I need to turn into closed captions and DVDA subtitles.

I have installed the VASST Caption Assistant trial but unfortunately I can't watch the training video, because Vimeo doesn't work here any more :(

1. Is there some button to press to punch in the in and out points of each caption as the timeline plays, or do I need to do that via markers?

2. Is there some way to control where the line breaks occur within each caption? That's something I really want to be able to do as per the guildelines in the "Line Division" section on this page).

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/7/2013, 5:53 AM
Hi Nick,

> "I can't watch the training video, because Vimeo doesn't work here any more :("

I will try and get the video uploaded to YouTube because it will really show you how everything works.

> "1. Is there some button to press to punch in the in and out points of each caption as the timeline plays, or do I need to do that via markers?"

At the bottom of Caption Assistant are transport buttons and next to them and buttons in insert the captions and stop the caption from viewing. You just press play, listed to the dialog and press the insert button and Caption Assistant will insert the caption. There is an "offset" amount that is used to compensate for the time you hear the works and press the button so that it will go back and insert it at the appropriate point. You never play with markers, you just use the buttons we provide and the markers are handled for you.

> "2. Is there some way to control where the line breaks occur within each caption? That's something I really want to be able to do as per the guildelines in the "Line Division" section on this page)."

No. The line breaks are determined by the amount of room left on the line for characters in the word the same as Vegas Pro does. It is not based on "syntax" nor has any of the captioning we've sent to PBS gotten rejected because "it broke an auxiliary verb from the word it modifies".

~jr

John Rofrano
Sundance Media Group / VASST
www.vasst.com
www.fasstapps.com
Tom Pauncz wrote on 2/7/2013, 9:06 AM
Great tutorial John. As well, another wonderful tool.
Tom
Former user wrote on 2/7/2013, 9:09 AM
" You never play with markers, you just use the buttons we provide and the markers are handled for you."

heh heh, I break this rule all of the time. That's what the resync button is for isn't it?

Dave T2
Former user wrote on 2/7/2013, 9:11 AM
Oh John, a minor bug in the Caption Assistant. If your timeline starts at 1 hour instead of 0, as you enter in your marks they show up as 00:XX:XX:XX, instead of 01:XX:XX:XX until you hit the resync button, then they are corrected. The majority of shows we caption are from tape and start at 01:00:00:00

Thank
Dave T2
NickHope wrote on 2/7/2013, 10:27 AM
Thanks John. I guess I'm just fussy with this type of thing. But I do think the readability of some captions can be improved with attention to placement of the line breaks. I'm also trying to impress a new customer (major educational media distributor) with the quality of my captions, having offered to do it myself instead of them outsourcing it.

So I'm looking at a workflow that goes out to a text format (.sub, .srt) so I can manually mess with those line breaks, then import again as closed captioning.

It would be great to see the tutorial on YouTube as well as Vimeo.
Spot|DSE wrote on 2/7/2013, 3:40 PM


You'll find it here, Nick. Thank you for letting us know that Vimeo isn't available in your area.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/7/2013, 10:16 PM
> "If your timeline starts at 1 hour instead of 0, as you enter in your marks they show up as 00:XX:XX:XX, instead of 01:XX:XX:XX until you hit the resync button, then they are corrected. The majority of shows we caption are from tape and start at 01:00:00:00"

Dave, This is exactly how we do all of our shows and I haven't seen this bug. Are you sure that you have the latest version? Our timeline actually starts at 00:59:29;00 with 30 seconds of bars & tone so that the shows starts at 01:00:00:00. I'll have to try it with the timeline starting at 01:00:00:00 instead. I guess you don't add bars & tone?

~jr

John Rofrano
Sundance Media Group / VASST
www.vasst.com
www.fasstapps.com
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/7/2013, 10:18 PM
> "It would be great to see the tutorial on YouTube as well as Vimeo."

Spot beat me to it but here it is embedded.



~jr

John Rofrano
Sundance Media Group / VASST
www.vasst.com
www.fasstapps.com
NickHope wrote on 2/7/2013, 10:29 PM
Thanks very much JR and DSE. Vimeo is available here but just broken at the moment, at least for me. Used to be really fast. I understand they were using BitGravity's CDN. Maybe they're doing it differently now. In the meantime YouTube zips down the wire from Singapore.
Former user wrote on 2/8/2013, 8:53 AM
JR,

I am only using Caption Assistant to create the SCC file which I import into Captionmaker to change to Roll Up 3 and sync to tape playback.

What is the current version #?

Normally in Vegas, I create a timeline with 1 hour DF code. Then caption against a low rez file of the offline (or in some cases final) show. Export an SCC.

Things are fine with I hit the resysnc, but while entering they are as I described.

I have not tried with the timeline starting below 01:00:00:00 but I could set that up and see if that fixes it.

Dave T2
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/9/2013, 8:00 AM
> "Things are fine with I hit the resysnc, but while entering they are as I described."

OK, I'm seeing it now. That's a bug! ;-) I'll get it fixed and upload a new version soon. Thanks for reporting that.

~jr

John Rofrano
Sundance Media Group / VASST
www.vasst.com
www.fasstapps.com