Problems with the Transcript File

CaptionSync allows you to submit your own formatted transcript on Captioning-Only requests. In this article, we discuss common error messages received when using your own transcript and guide you on how to fix those errors.

FATAL ERROR messages, as the name implies, mean you need to fix the problem in the transcript for the submission to proceed.
WARNING messages may request that you take action or may just be informational.

Error 206: Could not align text and audio:

This error will be shown if the system can not automatically align/sync text in the transcript with the audio content of your media. There are several scenarios that can cause synchronization issues such as background noise, speaker accent, crosstalk, but they can usually be solved by including additional sync markers in the transcript.
Learn how to properly use sync markers from our three dedicated Sync Markers articles - Sync Marker Summary, Getting Sync Markers to Work Properly and Caption Results Not in Sync with Audio. 

FATAL ERROR: Invalid character or incorrect markup:

This error can have several causes:

• There is a character not representable in the output, like ^ or * for broadcast outputs such as SCC, CAP, or ASC. In this case, you need to either remove that character from the transcript; or change your outputs. You can see in our character encoding reference article which characters are allowed for broadcast outputs.
  How do I know if I have broadcast outputs selected?

• The character is not marked up correctly. For example, a sync marker is incorrectly written as ^ M00:05:00, or ^00:05:00, or ^M00:5:00, instead of ^M00:05:00.

FATAL ERROR: Marker timestamp not greater than previous one:

This means that your sync markers are not correct – they need to be increasing as the file goes on (see our article on timecode flavors which details what to do about DF and non-zero based time codes). Check near the sync marker mentioned in the error message, to see where the problem is in your transcript.

FATAL ERROR: Timecode seen but no ^M, ^E, ^B, ^HE, ^HB, or ^W immediately precedes:

This error can have several causes:

• Your sync markers are not correctly formatted. For example, a sync marker is incorrectly written as ^ M00:05:00, or ^00:05:00, or ^M00:5:00, instead of ^M00:05:00.

• You are accidentally submitting a result file such as a .QT.TXT (which has time codes in it) in lieu of a text transcript file.

FATAL ERROR: Marker timestamp greater than duration of audio:

This means either your sync markers are not correctly formatted or the media file uploaded is shorter than the transcript. For example, the transcript contains ^M00:02:38 but the media file is only 2 minutes in length. Ensure that your transcript matches the audio content and duration of the media file.

FATAL ERROR: Mismatched [ ] pairs:

This error will be shown if there are mismatched square brackets in your transcript. For example, the transcript contains >> [Tom: , or [ Background Noise with the closing ] missing.

WARNING: Saw high ASCII character:

This is just a warning, but to complete your submission you need to decide whether to replace these characters with spaces, or just pass them through (which may result it caption files which do not display as expected).

Automatically Fixed

You may see warning messages like the following, even though your submission was accepted successfully:

We have detected Windows high ASCII characters in your text file. This error typically occurs from using Microsoft Word with smart quotes. The following were fixed automatically:

* Saw Windows curly single quote, high ASCII 0x92 immediately after ”more efficient. I think it is a relatively new term that” (character position XXX). Should replace with '

An accurate transcript is the beginning of a good captioned submission; following these guidelines ensures the transcript will work with our automated captioning process. Once your transcript is properly formatted, save the file as a UTF-8 .TXT file, and resubmit the request.