Google Drive Integration

Closed Captioning Google Drive videos with CaptionSync is easy. You can request closed captions from your Google Drive account with just a few clicks using our CaptionSync integration. This tutorial describes how to set up CaptionSync's integration with Google Drive.

NOTE: If you want to use the Smart Player to display your captioning results, please see the notes below, before making the request.

Text Tutorial

One-Time Setup:

• Log into CaptionSync, go to Settings -> Account Features, select Enable my account for Google Drive integration from the drop-down menu, and click Request Account Feature. You will receive an email updating you about the feature status. Note that if you don't see Google Drive on the "Account Feature to Add" drop-down menu, it's already enabled.

Enabling the integration for a Google account:

• Once you're notified that the feature is enabled, log back into your account, go to Settings -> Google Drive, and click Associate a new Google account:

• An Allow Access to my Google account box will be opened, requesting that permission is given to AST to read from, and deliver results into, your Google Drive account. Click Allow (you will be prompted to log in if you're not already logged into Google):

 

You'll then see this user listed on Settings -> Google Drive and can start submitting content for captioning. You can add as many Google users as you need.

Submitting Content for Transcription and Captioning:

• Log into your Google account and go to My Drive.

• NOTE: We require the media files you want captioned to have a Sharing setting of Anyone with the link can view, at least until the file is downloaded into our system and there is an AST ID for the request. Once there is an AST ID in our system, you can either leave the setting as Anyone with the link can view; or, you can share the file just with a specific audience. There are several ways to set the Sharing settings in Google Drive, but one simple way is to select files (or a folder) and then click Get shareable link.

• Right-click on the video, or videos, you wish add captions to, and scroll down to Open with -> CaptionSync.
  Note that you can only submit content in the MP4, M4V, and MP3 format.

• On the next screen, select the desired turnaround time; choose an exisiting persistent note, if available, or add guidance for the transcriber.

• Add a Purchase Order, if you have a Purchase Order account.
  
  
• Click Submit.

Viewing the Status of a Request:

Once we have received your request and the captioning process has started, your Google Drive account will display a status file, based on the name of the file, indicating the progress of your request. The status can be either ast-inprocess.txt, or ast-rejected.txt .

When captions are complete, the status file will show as ast-completed.txt . Unless you have disabled email notifications, you will also receive an email from CaptionSync.

Note: The in process or rejected status files will give you the List ID of your submission.

To see the details of a request, cancel it or to submit a redo, log into CaptionSync and go to Captioning -> Status of Lists -> List ID.

Accessing Results:

• Log into your CaptionSync account and go to Captioning -> Status of Lists and open the List Details page for your request.
  
  
• Generate and/or Launch the Smart Player URL.
  
  
• Embed the Smart Player link into an LMS course or a web page.

• Alternatively, you can rename the ast-completed.txt status file with the .vtt ending, and use it as a caption track with your Google Drive videos, as described in our Adding Closed Captions to Google Drive videos tutorial.
  Note that if you download your video from Google Drive, it will no longer be associated with the caption track, and so it will not display captions outside the Google Drive platform.

Additional Notes

• If your media file is larger than 100 MB, Google Drive will throw a warning saying the file is too large to do a virus scan. While we can bypass this, and download the media file and process your request successfully, we cannot do so for the Smart Player. So, if you wish to use the Smart Player with your Google Drive media files, you'll have to downsize them to under 100 MB, by, for example, transcoding the media into a lower-resolution file. Alternatively, you can download the files from your Drive, and place them on another online platform, like: Dropbox, and make the requests using URLs to the media; or, Box, and place the requests using our Box integration. You can then use the Smart Player to display the results.

• Unless your Google Drive media files are public, the Smart Player will only work with them if you keep the Sharing settings as Anyone with the link can view, or, shared with the specific audience you want to be able to watch results on the Smart Player.

• The ast-completed.txt status file, once renamed with the .vtt ending, it can be downloaded and used on some of the most common video platforms. To learn how to associate your caption file with the media visit our article on How to use my Captioning results.