A caption is a textual transcription of the spoken words. Captions and subtitles are especially helpful for us in education. They server various pedagogical purposes including the facts that they provide language practice and vocabulary building opportunities for language learners, they make learning more inclusive and accessible by allowing individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing to easily access verbal content in videos and photos, and more.
Captions are also ideal in noisy situations where the voice coming out of the video is hardly audible or when the language used is spoken in an idiosyncratic variety that is not wholly familiar to the hearer. Luckily, YouTube does offer an integrated captioning and subtitling service but there are also several other apps to use to add captions and subtitles to your videos. As of writing this paragraph (2022), the apps below are some of the best options out there.
1- MixCaptions
MixCaptions is a good app to add subtitles and captions to your videos, The way it works is simple: upload your video and MixCaptions takes care of automatic captioning. You can always edit your video captions after they were transcribed. Other features provided by MixCaptions include the possibility to show captions in three different positions: at the top, in the middle, or at the bottom of the videos.
Users can also edit text, fonts, and colors; import SRT files, and save subtitled videos to their devices. MixCaptions also supports over 20 transcription languages including English, Dutch, French, German, Korean, Italian, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish and many more. Premium features offered include transcription of longer videos (e.g., 10 minutes or 30 minutes), no watermark, export SRT files, add your text or image watermark, and more.
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2- Kaptioned
Kaptioned uses artificial intelligence (AI) to auto detect the text spoken in videos and automatically produces subtitles for videos. Like MixCaptions, Kaptioned provides a wide array of editing and customization options for users. For instance, you can add your text and captions to any part of your video. You can also change the style and colors of your subtitles. And most importantly, you can opt to have subtitles displayed in two languages at once. Your captions can be exported as SRT file.
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3. Kapwing
Kapwing is another of my favourite video editors that is also available as a mobile app. Kapwing allows you to add captions and subtitles to videos, insert text anywhere in the video, remove video background, trim and resize video parts, enable automatic transcription, and many more. Kapwing also offers collaborative features allowing you to collaborate with your team mates and create awesome video content.
4. Teleprompter
Teleprompter allows you to record videos and automatically add captions and subtitles to them. The way it works is simple: you start reading from a prompt while recording yourself in HD. The script appears next to the camera lens helping read your message while making direct eye contact with your audience.Teleprompter allows you use a remote control to start and stop the recording and control the scrolling script. You can import your script from places such as Dropbox, IcLOUD OR Google Drive. You can also share your scripts across various devices and many more.Once your video is recorded you then edit it the way you want.
5. Automatic Captions & Subtitles
Automatic Captions & Subtitles is another good app to add captions and subtitles to videos. You can easily generate automatic captions in over 80 languages and translate them into over 100 languages. You can then export them in different formats such as SRT, VTT, SUB, DFXP, and TXT. You can generate captions and subtitles for YouTube videos by simply pasting the link from the YouTube app. You can also use the app to generate captions for video and audio files, Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.
6. AutoCap
AutoCap enables you to automatically add animated captions to videos. The app recognizes the video’s audio and transcribes it into text. Autocap can transcribe up to 5 minutes length (10 minutes for subscribers) of video’s audio, more than five minutes you need to do it manually. Here is how Autocap works: first select or record your video, edit the transcripts of the video, choose your text style and animation, save your work as MP4 video to share with others or upload to video hosting platforms.
7. Voicella
Voicella is another app to use to add captions and subtitles to videos. Besides adding subtitles, the app also supports translation allowing to translate the audio of your video into over 90 languages. You can easily use the app’s editor to transcribe text and add your subtitles on the video timeline. You can adjust the font, size, colour and position of your subtitles and place them anywhere you want on the screen. Once your video is ready you can share it with others on social media.
8- Veme.ly
Veme.ly allows you to create annotated videos to share on your social platforms. You can import videos from your library, download them from a third party platform, or record them directly within Veme.ly. Once added, you can add text above or below the video. You can also add ‘captions either manually or by importing your SRT File from cloud services to save your precious’. Other elements to add to your videos using Veme.ly include emojis, progress bars, borders, banners, GIF or image stickers, your own watermark, and many more.
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9- Captions for Talking Videos
Captions, as its name indicates, does just that: automatically generates and adds captions to videos.’Forget typing in captions for your videos by hand every time you’re ready to post. “Captions” will automatically create captions for your videos and give you editing power to adjust content before you’re done. Simply export your finished captioned video and share it wherever you want.’
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