Automated captions are generated using automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology. On this page, we review a few commonly used tools that have automated captioning available. While automated captioning tools can be useful to get a head start on captioning your video content, they are not sufficiently accurate for content that will be publicly available or to fulfill accommodation requests from students, employees, or members of the public. In addition to generating automated captions, all of the tools on this page should allow users to edit captions in the platform and upload a caption file, unless otherwise noted.
For publicly available content and accommodation requests, automated captions require editing by a human to ensure they meet the Captioning Quality Guidelines. Learn more about available captioning resources and support by visiting the CU Boulder Digital Accessibility Office (DAO) Post-Production Captioning page.
Zoom Cloud
Zoom can generate and display an automated transcript and automated captions for Zoom Cloud recordings. You can then edit the transcript and captions directly within the Zoom web interface.
Note: You cannot upload a caption file for Zoom Cloud media.
Canvas Studio
Canvas Studio is a media tool that can generate automated captions for videos available within Canvas. Canvas Studio can provide automated captions for uploaded video files, videos created with its recording tool, or videos imported from YouTube. Once Canvas Studio creates an automated caption transcript, you can edit the captions using Canvas Studio’s Caption Editor.
YouTube
YouTube is not a campus-wide OIT-supported service at CU Boulder. However, YouTube is a well-known video platform that can create automated captions for content uploaded by users. Learn more about YouTube automated captions and how to edit automated captions in YouTube to improve accuracy.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Premiere Pro is a professional video editing software. The Adobe Premiere Pro speech-to-text feature allows you to generate automated captions for your media. You can also learn extensive information about the captioning workflow in Premiere Pro. Please visit the OIT Adobe Creative Cloud page to learn more and/or to purchase the software.
Otter.ai
You can create automated captions using Otter.ai, a speech-to-text transcription application that creates shareable audio files and transcripts. There are a wide range of features available within Otter.ai you can explore.
Note: You cannot upload a caption file for Otter.ai media.
Social Media
Many social media platforms offer options for automated captions or uploading a caption file for your media. To learn more, please refer to our guide about captioning options for social media platforms.