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Video Subtitles & Captions

Make your videos accessible to everyone with auto-generated captions or custom subtitles

Updated over a week ago

Adding subtitles and captions to your videos makes your content more accessible to a wider audience. Our system automatically generates captions for newly uploaded videos, and you can also manually add subtitles in multiple languages.


What's the Difference?

Subtitles translate dialogue for viewers who can hear but may not understand the language.

Captions provide a full textual representation of all audio, including dialogue, sound effects, and speaker identification, for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing.


โœจ Automatic Caption Generation

Uscreen automatically generates captions for your videos if your storefront uses one of the following languages:

  • English

  • Spanish

  • Italian

  • Portuguese

  • German

  • French

How Auto-Captions Work

  1. When you upload a new video, you'll notice a Processing Auto-Caption status in the Subtitles and Captions block.

  2. Once the video is transcoded and the audio is processed, the auto-generated caption track will appear.

๐Ÿ“ NOTE: Auto-captions are only available for newly uploaded videos or when replacing existing videos. They cannot be retroactively added to your existing catalog without reuploading or replacing.

Adding Auto-Captions to Existing Videos

To add auto-captions to videos uploaded before this feature was available, you have two options:

Option 1: Replace the video (recommended)

  1. Navigate to Content > Videos

  2. Click Replace under the video preview

  3. Upload a modified version of the video file (even a minor edit will work)

๐Ÿ”— Learn more about Replacing a Video

โ„น๏ธ INFO: This preserves all comments, analytics, and metadata while triggering auto-caption generation

Option 2: Upload as a new video

  1. Navigate to Content > Videos

  2. Auto-captions will be generated

๐Ÿ”— Learn more about Uploading a Video

๐Ÿ“ NOTE: This method doesn't preserve existing comments or analytics.


Editing & Downloading Auto-Captions

As with all AI tools, auto-generated captions may not be perfect. You can:

  1. Rename, Delete, or Download the auto-generated caption file

  2. Edit it for accuracy

  3. Upload the edited file to replace the auto-generated captions

๐Ÿ“ NOTE: The auto-generated captions are available in the video's original language only.


Manually Adding Subtitles

You can add subtitles in multiple languages to make your content accessible to a wider audience.

โ„น๏ธ INFO: Uscreen supports .VTT files for subtitles. If you have other formats like .SRT, you'll need to convert them first.

Uploading Subtitles

  1. Navigate to Content > Videos

  2. Select the video you want to add subtitles to

  3. Scroll down to Subtitles and Captions

  4. Drag or click to upload your .VTT file

  5. Click Save Changes

Creating VTT Files

If you need to create VTT subtitles, use a free service such as VTT Creator or a similar tool.


Viewer Experience with Subtitles

Web player: Button in the bottom control bar

Mobile apps: Button in the player controls

TV apps: Available in player settings (varies by device)

๐Ÿ“ NOTE: Captions or subtitles aren't enabled by default. Viewers must activate them using the option provided in the video player.


FAQs

Why aren't my subtitles showing up in the video player?

Ensure your .VTT file is properly formatted, and the viewers have enabled subtitles in the player. Subtitles are not on by default and must be turned on by the viewer.

Can I add subtitles in multiple languages?

Yes, you can upload as many different language subtitle files as needed for each video.

Why are my subtitles out of sync with the video?

Check the timestamps in your .VTT file. Uscreen videos play in Drop Frame format, so your source video file should also be in Drop Frame for the best alignment.

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