[Athen] Checking for Captions

Joseph Polizzotto jpolizzotto at berkeley.edu
Mon Nov 5 11:55:47 PST 2018


Hi Robert:

I forgot to mention youtube-dl <https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/>, which
is a handy command line tool that you can install to download the video or
captions posted on YouTube or Vimeo.

Once installed, simply enter the following command to see what caption
tracks are available:

youtube-dl YouTubeURL --list-subs

-- list-subs: get a list of all the YouTube "subtitle" tracks

Then you could use one of these commands to download the captions:

1) Download an Edited track

youtube-dl YouTubeURL --skip-download --write-sub --sub-lang en --output
"%(title)s.%(ext)s"

--skip-download: skips downloading the video
--write-sub: downloads a caption track
--sub-lang en: specifies the English caption track for download
--output "%(title)s.%(ext)s": specifies that you want the name of the video
and the caption format to be included in the name of the downloaded file

2) Download an Automatic Captions track

youtube-dl YouTubeURL --skip-download --write-auto-sub --sub-lang en
--output "%(title)s.%(ext)s"

--write-auto-sub: downloads an auto-caption track
--sub-lang en: specifies the English automatic caption track for download

If there are no automatic captions available for the video, you will get a
warning in the terminal:

WARNING: Couldn't find automatic captions for Name of the Video

YouTube usually makes it captions tracks in VTT or TTML format. If you
wanted to strip out the timecodes and just get a plain text version, you
could get write a sed script for that or I would just use DIYCaptions and
select the Plain Text display. Then copy and paste that into your text
editor.

HTH,

Joseph






On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 10:09 AM Robert Spangler <rspangler1 at udayton.edu>
wrote:


> Awesome, thanks everyone for your suggestions. I will archive these to

> provide to whomever we hire to fill our web accessibility specialist

> position.

>

>

> On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 12:27 PM Joseph Polizzotto <

> jpolizzotto at berkeley.edu> wrote:

>

>> Hi Robert:

>>

>> Another way to check for captions in a YouTube video is to use the DIY

>> Captions Editor. You could do the following:

>>

>> 1. Copy the YouTube URL

>> 2. Paste the URL in the text box at the DIYCaptions site:

>> https://www.diycaptions.com/

>> 3.(Once the DIY Captions Editor interfaces open in a new tab) you can use

>> these handy shortcut keys:

>> - F8: replay the audio that corresponds to the current caption block

>> - Down Arrow: read the current caption block

>> - Tab: move to the next caption block

>>

>> I tested using Google Chrome + NVDA and I was able to navigate from one

>> caption to the next pretty easily. I pressed Tab and then down arrow to

>> hear the captions.

>>

>> Note: the DIY Captions Editor also displays all the captions as an

>> interactive transcript by default. You can navigate to this area too and

>> read the captions as a running text, except that each caption block is

>> announced as a link when you use the interactive transcript view. You could

>> try mousing over the Menu (since the dropdown menu is not in the Tab Order)

>> and selecting Display captions as Plain Text. Then mouse over the textbox

>> (also inaccessible!) on the right-hand side, click into the "Edit

>> Multi-Line" area, and use up and down arrows to read each line of the whole

>> transcript. You might want to copy and paste the whole text to review later.

>>

>> HTH,

>>

>> Joseph

>>

>> On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 8:14 AM Robert Spangler <rspangler1 at udayton.edu>

>> wrote:

>>

>>> Hi Lucy, thanks for this informative reply! I did go into a YouTube

>>> video and was able to read the captions by arrowing up above the location

>>> slider on the video. It did not read them automatically; I had to arrow up

>>> and down to hear them, which could be problematic since they change a lot,

>>> but at least I was able to hear them. If you have suggestions on how I can

>>> do this better, that would be great. Thanks again for confirming that I

>>> can actually read the captions though!

>>>

>>>

>>> On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 1:37 PM Lucy Greco <lgreco at berkeley.edu> wrote:

>>>

>>>> HELLO: YOUR RONG WE CAN CHECK FOR CAPTIONS AND MANY BLIND PEOPLE EVEN

>>>> ARE CART PROVIDERS. MOST PLATFORMS LIKE YOUTUBE AND VIMEO HAVE THE

>>>> CAPTIONS AS TEXT ON THE SCREEN AND THE SCREEN READER CAN SPEAK THESE OR

>>>> MORE INPORTENTLY A HARD OF HEREING OR DEF BLIND PERSON CAN FOLLOW ALONG

>>>> ON A BRAILLE DISPLAY. TRY TURNING CAPTIONS ON IN YOUTUBE AND MUTING THE

>>>> VIDEO AND HERE THE SCREEN READER READ A LONG. ON YOUTUBE YOU CAN ALSO COPY

>>>> THE TEXT OF THE TRANSCRIPT AND SEND IT TO A NOTE TAKER OR EMBOSSER AND

>>>> READ ALONG LOOKING FOR BAD CAPTIONS AND THEN EDIT THE FILE AND RE UPLOAD

>>>> IT. THE ONLY THING I HAVE FOUND I CAN'T DO IS EDUT IN THE YOUTUBE EDITOR

>>>> BUT I HAVE AN ASK IN TO GOOGLE FOR THAT ONE DAY LUCY

>>>> Lucia Greco

>>>> Web Accessibility Evangelist

>>>> IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration

>>>> University of California, Berkeley

>>>> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco

>>>> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu

>>>> Follow me on twitter @accessaces

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>> On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 3:42 PM Robert Spangler <rspangler1 at udayton.edu>

>>>> wrote:

>>>>

>>>>> Hello, is it possible for a blind person to check if there are

>>>>> captions in a video? Everything I know tells me not, but I want to ask

>>>>> anyway in case there is some way that I am unaware of. The captions are

>>>>> displayed in the actual video content, which is not readable by a screen

>>>>> reader. I know on YouTube, I might be able to tell by whether the captions

>>>>> button is present or not, but I'm not sure if that button is always there

>>>>> or just when captions are available. Even then, I don't think I would be

>>>>> able to evaluate the captions anyway.

>>>>>

>>>>> Thanks,

>>>>> Robert

>>>>>

>>>>>

>>>>> --

>>>>> Robert Spangler

>>>>> Disability Services Technical Support Specialist

>>>>> rspangler1 at udayton.edu

>>>>> Office of Learning Resources (OLR) - RL 023

>>>>> Ryan C. Harris Learning & Teaching Center (LTC)

>>>>> University of Dayton | 300 College Park | Dayton, Ohio 45469-1302

>>>>> Phone: 937-229-2066

>>>>> Fax: 937-229-3270

>>>>> Ohio Relay: 711 (available for individuals who are deaf or hard of

>>>>> hearing)

>>>>> Web Site: http://go.udayton.edu/learning

>>>>>

>>>>> _______________________________________________

>>>>> athen-list mailing list

>>>>> athen-list at mailman12.u.washington.edu

>>>>> http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list

>>>>>

>>>> _______________________________________________

>>>> athen-list mailing list

>>>> athen-list at mailman12.u.washington.edu

>>>> http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list

>>>>

>>>

>>>

>>> --

>>> Robert Spangler

>>> Disability Services Technical Support Specialist

>>> rspangler1 at udayton.edu

>>> Office of Learning Resources (OLR) - RL 023

>>> Ryan C. Harris Learning & Teaching Center (LTC)

>>> University of Dayton | 300 College Park | Dayton, Ohio 45469-1302

>>> Phone: 937-229-2066

>>> Fax: 937-229-3270

>>> Ohio Relay: 711 (available for individuals who are deaf or hard of

>>> hearing)

>>> Web Site: http://go.udayton.edu/learning

>>>

>>> _______________________________________________

>>> athen-list mailing list

>>> athen-list at mailman12.u.washington.edu

>>> http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list

>>>

>>

>>

>> --

>> *Alternate Media Supervisor*

>> Disabled Students' Program

>> University of California, Berkeley

>> https://dsp.berkeley.edu/

>> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdsp.berkeley.edu%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C4e0abffcb5b34567a22308d5e13137b3%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636662523854357148&sdata=yB5%2BUm2W6TBwpc%2BOF4DvN8wPoo1dozUwz8eCepYhTyY%3D&reserved=0>

>> (510) 642-0329

>>

>> _______________________________________________

>> athen-list mailing list

>> athen-list at mailman12.u.washington.edu

>> http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list

>>

>

>

> --

> Robert Spangler

> Disability Services Technical Support Specialist

> rspangler1 at udayton.edu

> Office of Learning Resources (OLR) - RL 023

> Ryan C. Harris Learning & Teaching Center (LTC)

> University of Dayton | 300 College Park | Dayton, Ohio 45469-1302

> Phone: 937-229-2066

> Fax: 937-229-3270

> Ohio Relay: 711 (available for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing)

> Web Site: http://go.udayton.edu/learning

>

> _______________________________________________

> athen-list mailing list

> athen-list at mailman12.u.washington.edu

> http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list

>



--
*Alternate Media Supervisor*
Disabled Students' Program
University of California, Berkeley
https://dsp.berkeley.edu/
<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdsp.berkeley.edu%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C4e0abffcb5b34567a22308d5e13137b3%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636662523854357148&sdata=yB5%2BUm2W6TBwpc%2BOF4DvN8wPoo1dozUwz8eCepYhTyY%3D&reserved=0>
(510) 642-0329
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