Closed Captioning with Legacy Echo360

Closed Captioning Echo360 videos with CaptionSync is easy using our integration. This tutorial describes how to set up CaptionSync's integration with Echo360.

Tutorial:

This tutorial describes setting up Legacy (non-ALP) Echo360 with CaptionSync. For Echo360 ALP, please see our other tutorial instead.

Setup Steps:

• Log into CaptionSync, go to Settings -> Account Features, select Enable my account for Legacy Echo360 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 Legacy Echo360 on the "Account Feature to Add" drop-down menu, it's already enabled.

• Now you need to generate a public-private key pair. You can use any SSH key generator to do this, or you can follow the instructions in our articles on generating keys: generating an SSH key on Windows, or generating an SSH key on Mac, Linux or Unix.

• Select the public part of the key and copy it to your clipboard. Log back into CaptionSync, go to Settings -> SSH Keys and click Add Another Key. Paste the SSH key into New Public Key, add a Note for Key (e.g. Echo360), and click Add Key. The status initially shows as Pending, but changes to Ready within 5 minutes (reload the page).

• Log into Echo360, go to Configuration -> Publishers, and click Add.
  
  • On the Publisher Details page, enter a name for the integration next to Name.
  • Choose Automatic Sync from the Organization drop-down menu.
  • From the Publisher Type drop-down menu, select Closed Captioning and Transcript.
  • The SFTP Server is services.automaticsync.com .
  • Next to Account Name, enter your CaptionSync username (must be lower case).
  • Next to Private Key, paste the private part of the key you generated earlier.
  • Click Test Settings. If you see Test Succeeded, click Save.
  Review your settings again, and click Done:

Your setup is complete and you can now submit your lectures for captioning. With Echo360 there are two different scenarios for captioning: when you have an existing recording and would like to request captioning and/or transcription for it; or, when you have a series of recordings that you want to be automatically captioned and/or transcribed as they are captured.

Requesting Captioning and/or Transcription for an existing Recording:

• Open the Echoes tab, select one of the existing Echoes, and click Edit. Near the bottom of the page, there's the Configured Publishers list. You'll need to add CaptionSync to this list so that a request for captioning and/or transcription can be sent. Click Add Publisher. From the drop-down menu, select the name you previously gave to the new Publisher, e.g. CaptionSync.

• Several options regarding your request will be displayed.
  
  • If you only want to request a transcript, and no captions, check the Transcript Only? box. You need to have your account enabled for Transcription-Only or your request will be rejected.
  • If you need to receive results within one business day, check Request Rush Service?.
  • In the Notes box, you can add guidance to the transcribers, such as the proper spelling of names or special terminology.

• Finally, click Save. A request for captioning and/or transcription will now be sent to AST.

Requesting Captioning and/or Transcription for a Series of Recordings:

• Open the Schedule tab, select one of the existing Schedules, and click Edit. Near the bottom of this page, there's the Configured Publishers list. Click the course section link to add a new Publisher. Click Add Publisher. The rest of the process is similar to what we previously described for existing recordings. Remember that the guidance you add to this request will be applied to all scheduled recordings in this Schedule.

• Finally, click Save. All future recordings on this Schedule will automatically be sent for captioning and/or transcription as soon as they're completed and processed.

To see details of a request, cancel it or to submit a redo, log into CaptionSync and go to Captioning -> Status of Submissions. You may also use the Echo360 ID to track the status of your submissions by pasting the ID at the end of the https://web.automaticsync.com/show_details.php?e_id= URL; then copy and paste the URL in your browser.

Displaying Captions during Playback:

As soon as results are completed, they will appear on subsequent playbacks automatically.
Launch the player by clicking view, and then Play. Click CC to watch captions being displayed. You can change the location and size of the captions pane.

The player offers other useful tools, like the Search tool, which allows you to search the text of the media. If you type in a word or phrase that you want to find, the player will instantly find all instances of the search phrase, and if you click on any one of them the player will bring you immediately to that segment in the recording.

Additional Notes:

• If you have a Purchase Order account, a valid Purchase Order needs to be set before you make any requests from Echo360. If there isn’t a default Purchase Order set, the most recent valid one will be used. If there aren’t any valid Purchase Orders, all captioning requests will be rejected.