Hello, I'm going to show you how easy it is to create a digital audio recording of a VHS tape so you can use Automatic Sync Technologies' CaptionSync automated captioning service.

With DVD or Web media, you already have a digital form of your program, so sending it to AST for captioning is easy.  To caption a videotape however, you first need to create a digital recording of the audio track from your tape.

We'll walk you through the steps required to do so, in three sections.
First we'll cover connecting the cables between the hardware, followed by making the audio recording, and finally we'll determine the start time offset.

So let's take a few minutes and set up the cables with the following items:
- a standard desktop computer;
- a standard VHS tape deck;
- and a stereo mini to RCA patch cord.

Your A/V department likely already has one of these cables, but they are inexpensive and readily available from Radio Shack or your local electronics store.  Here's the stereo mini end and the RCA connector end to give you an idea of what you're looking for.

So let's locate the audio connectors on the back of your computer.  There will typically be three connectors; Speakers, Line-In, and Microphone, -- we're interested in the Line-In jack.  Connect the stereo mini end of the patch cord firmly to the Line-In jack on your sound card.  The RCA connectors at the other end of the cable need to go to the RCA Line-Out on the VCR.  Be sure you find the Line-Out connecters, because the Line-In connectors will look very similar.

On this VCR, the Line-Out connectors are at the bottom, so we simply connect red to red and white to white.

That's all there is to it.

Now we're ready to start step two -- audio recording.  I'll demonstrate by using CoolEdit in Windows XP, but feel free to use any audio software on your computer which can record a PCM WAV files.

Let's check that we're getting our audio from the correct place.  Right click on the speaker icon in the system tray and choose Open Volume Control.  Next under the Options menu select Properties, and in the window that appears select the Recording radio button.  Now the main screen will show the input volume levels instead of the output ones.  Make sure the Line-In volume is selected and set about mid-point; deselect or mute the microphone and any other input sources present.  

Next in our audio recording application, CoolEdit in this case, let's specify how we'd like our audio recorded.  Choose a sampling rate of 22050 (that's 22 kilohertz), mono, and 16 bit resolution.

Now we're ready to hit the Record button down here; then press the Play button on the VCR. 


When the program is complete, press "stop" on both the software application and the VCR.  Save the recording to the
disk, making sure that you've selected PCM WAV as the file type.  You have now successfully created a digital audio recording of your videotape.

The third and final step is to determine the start time of your new recording.  If necessary, trim any excess silence 
from the beginning and end of the recording and re-save your file.  Most audio recording programs will allow you to do this by simply highlighting the silence and pressing delete.  Do not over-trim -- it is best to leave at least a couple seconds of
silence at the beginning and end of the file.  

AST's captioning system will use the beginning of your audio file as time zero; all captions will be timed relative
to this point.  To get the timing correct, we must determine where this "time-zero" point is on your 
videotape.  There are two possible ways to do this.

The first way is to determine the time code on your tape at the beginning of your audio file.  This time code is 
expressed as hours, minutes, seconds and frames.  Note this value and enter it as the "offset time code"
when you submit your show to the AST server.

The second way is a bit simpler.  Just submit your show to the AST server using an offset time code of zero.  When you get results back, load them into your captioning software.  Determine the time code of the first caption, just as if you were manually captioning the show.  Now adjust the time code of this first caption and use the "ripple time change" to have the software automatically adjust all the subsequent time codes.

So now we're done, and we can use this audio file with the Automatic Sync Technologies' CaptionSync captioning service.