Integrations Overview

Closed Captioning is easy using our integration with multiple platforms. This article provides an overview of the workflow.

Our CaptionSync service is integrated with many video platforms, including lecture capture systems (such as Mediasite, Echo360, Tegrity, Panopto, and D2L Capture) and online video platforms ("OVPs", such as Kaltura, Brightcove, and Ensemble Video).  We refer to these integrations as "workflow integrations," because they vastly simplify the workflow of adding closed captions to online video.  Rather than uploading video files to CaptionSync, downloading the caption files that we generate, and then uploading those caption files to your video platform ("the manual method"), our integrations automate this entire process.  Once an integration is set up, you simply indicate which videos on your video platform you want captioned, and we do the rest. The video is automatically sent to CaptionSync, we transcribe and caption it, and then automatically push the captions back to your platform.  

Here is an overview of how these integrations work.  First you need to map an account on your video platform to a CaptionSync account. This usually involves entering usernames and server addresses in each system, along with copying either a public access key or read/write access tokens to one or both systems for authentication purposes. This step only needs to be done once.  After this setup the two accounts are linked, and the systems can authenticate and transfer files between each other. After this setup is complete, when you indicate that a video should be captioned, files are exchanged as shown in the diagram below.

The steps in the automated captioning workflow are as follows:

1. The video file is transferred from the video platform to CaptionSync.
2. The recording is routed to an appropriate human transcriber.
3. The human transcriber creates a transcript, which is then processed by CaptionSync.
4. CaptionSync generates a synchronized caption file, which is sent back to the video platform.

The video platform then uses the captions in the caption file to enable playback of captions with the original video, along with enabling other features such as in-video search.

Detailed information about each one of these integrations is available in our Integrations section.