Hello, this is a short video on how to use captions with streaming media.

Captions on streaming media are ideal because text appears in a separate pane, never obscuring the video or messing with the video file.

Furthermore, there is more flexibility in terms of fonts, colors, and line lengths. Shown here is the RealPlayer output, but similiar flexibility and appearance appears both in the QuickTime Player and the Windows Media Player.

For each player type selected you will typically get back two files. A caption file which is basically a text transcript with timing information. Your video file is unaltered and the existing can be used, so we don't send it back to you.  And the pointer file. This tells the media player to play these two pieces together in synchronized fashion. 

For RealMedia, the pointer file is called a SMIL file and the caption file is a dot RT file. 

For QuickTime the pointer file is also a SMIL, although it is different than the RealMedia's. The caption file is a QT dot TEXT file. 

For Windows Media Player, the pointer file is an ASX and the caption file is a SAMI file.  

Also note that other than RM, MOV, and WMV files, there are other formats that these players can play.  Captions can also be used with them. So what do you do with these result files? Basically place the pointer file and the caption file on your streaming or web server with your video is streamed. You need to insure that the pointer file refers to the correct location, name, and protocol. So if you change the name, you need to update in this SMIL or the ASX file to refer to the correct file.  You also need to ensure the protocol is correct. So you're using a web server, HTTP would be the correct protocol, whereas if you're using a streaming server, such as a Helix server, RTSP would be correct protocol.  Check with your media expert on the location and the protocol. Also if you've submitted them to our system they're already named correctly, so you get back the correct file names.  If you have further questions, feel free to contact me.