Edit Captions Outside of Canvas and MiVideo or Fix Out of Sync Captions

Environment

Canvas
MiVideo Mediaspace

Issue

Edit captions outside the Captions Editor or fix captions timings that are out of sync with the audio. This workflow also fixes issues with long lines in the captions display in the player. Recommended line length is 32 or less characters and a maximum of 2 lines per screen. 

Resolution

You must be the media owner or co-editor. See the Collaboration and Roles article to learn how to add co-editors to media.

1. Optional: Editing Transcript Text Before Syncing the File

Note: Captions can be edited for accuracy by correcting the text file. This step is not necessary when correcting captions timings.

1. Navigate to the Media page
2. Click the download button on the interactive transcript widget just below the player to download the text transcript file
3. Edit the file in a TEXT editor ( such as Notepad, Wordpad, or TextEdit) and Save As to save your changes with a different file name than what downloaded (this helps avoid confusion in next steps)

2. Syncing the Transcript with the Audio/Video

​​​​​​Alignment will accept a plain text file and sync it back to the video to create the closed captions file. If your transcript is in MS Word or other non-text format, you must Save As a plain text file.

1. Navigate to the Media page
2. Actions > Caption & Enrich
3. Change the Service to Text Transcript Alignment
4. The original TXT transcript file may be selected
   • If you didn't make edits, leave the file selected and click submit
   • If you edited the transcript or there isn't one selected, use the Upload txt button to upload the new file, clicking Save in the uploader, then SELECT it (it won't do this automatically when you upload), then click on the Submit button
5. You will see a message that your request has been received. Give it up to 30 minutes to process. The system should automatically disable the old captions and enable the new one

Tip: If The new captions are not enabled or the old ones are still enabled, you can toggle them on/off by going to the Edit Media page > Captions tab and clicking the little video player button next to the caption that needs to be adjusted. Captions won't display when there is line through the icon.

3. Optional: Deleting Old Captions/Transcript Files

Tip: Deleting cannot be undone. Save a backup by downloading the file(s) to your computer first. 

If you want to delete the old files once you verify everything is working see the Delete Captions article.

Related Articles

See related Media Captioning articles for more information about captions.

Additional Information

• Check out the new Academic Technology@Michigan website for course planning resources from across U-M
• Visit the Canvas @ Michigan site for faculty including the U-M Instructor Guide with links to additional support resources from across campus
• Check out the Canvas and MiVideo tutorials

For additional questions, please contact the ITS Service Center