Adding Closed Captions to Zoom Videos

Adding Closed Captions to your Zoom meetings is easy with CaptionSync. Zoom offers two options for recording meetings - Local Recording and Cloud Recording; you can use either option to record meetings that you wish to later have captioned. This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to submit Zoom recorded meetings for captioning.

Tutorial

Zoom allows users to record their meetings locally or on the cloud. Learn how to export and caption your meetings below.

Exporting Zoom Meetings:

Exporting Local Recording Meetings:

Zoom Local Recording saves your recorded files on your computer's local drive, in the Zoom folder. To caption your meetings, just follow the steps outlined below.

Exporting Cloud Recording Meetings:

There are two options currently available for exporting cloud-recorded meetings. You can download the files to your device and follow the steps outlined below.
Or, if you have a Kaltura account, you can use Zoom's Kaltura Integration to automatically upload your Zoom cloud recordings into your Kaltura system. You can then use CaptionSync's Kaltura Integration to submit your meetings and have results posted back to your Kaltura system automatically.

Captioning your media file:

Upload your recorded meetings to a cloud storage platform such as Dropbox, YouTube, or Vimeo, published as public or unlisted. Other options are Panopto, Mediasite, Brightcove, VoiceThread, other online video platforms, or your own website.
Then you have 3 options to caption the meetings:

• Smart Player: you can submit a URL to the video, and once results are ready, generate and launch the CaptionSync Smart Player. You can share the Smart Player directly, or embed it into your website or Learning Management System (LMS).

• Video platform integrations: if your video is located in a platform we are integrated with, you can make the captioning request, and once results are ready, we will post the caption file directly to the video platform.

• Other video platforms: if your video is located in another video platform, you can make the captioning request, and once results are ready, associate the captions with the video. If the player does not support Closed Captioning, you can add Open Captioning to the request at submission time.

Smart Player:

• Submit your media file for captioning. The Smart Player is available for the following URLs: YouTube, Dropbox, Vimeo, and direct URLs to .mp4, .m4v, .f4v, or .mp3 media files. If the URL to your file is not compatible with our List of URLs feature, then we recommend placing the video on YouTube; or in your local system as long as the URL points directly to the media file, e.g.: http://www.domain.com/path/video_filename.mp4 .
  If the audio content of your meeting is poor (has static or is noisy), then we also recommend adding Result Review to your request. 

• Once final results are available, open the URL List Details page, and generate and launch the CaptionSync Smart Player, under the Smart Player URL column. You can share the Smart Player directly, or embed it into your website or Learning Management System (LMS).

See an example of the CaptionSync Smart Player playing.

Integration with a Video Platform:

If your video is located in a platform we are integrated with, like YouTube, Panopto, Mediasite, etc, you can take advantage of our integrations with those platforms to add captions to the media file. You just need to enable your CaptionSync account for the integration, make the captioning request, and then we will post back captions automatically into the video platform, when results are available. Captions will be displayed when playing the video.
See the integrations we have available, and how to use and configure them, in our Closed Captioning Integrations category.

Other Video Platforms:

If your video is located in an online platform we're not integrated with, you can make a manual request for it, and then associate the captions with the video. Captions will be displayed when playing the video (ensure the video player you're using supports Closed Captioning).
If the player does not support Closed Captioning, you can select Open Captioning at submission time, and then you just need to upload the finished encoded output into the video platform.

Additional Notes:

• Local Recording is available for every type of account, free and paid. Local recording allows you to record meeting video and audio locally on your computer or shared network drive. You do need to have enough space on your device though.

• Cloud Recording is available to paid subscribers only, and allows you to keep recordings on your Zoom account. It is available to the Pro, Business or Education Plans, and requires a "Cloud Recording add-on" subscription plan. More information about Plans is available in Zoom's article on this topic. Depending on the Number of Licenses, and the type of Plan, each account can have anywhere from 1 to 10 GB of storage.