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Live Schedule WebVTT Caption Guide

This article serves as a guide as to how to enable WebVTT captions for Live Schedule. Additionally, It documents any key features and caveats regarding displaying WebVTT captions for Live Schedule.

Enable WebVTT Captions for Live Schedule

Enabling captions using the V2 VOD user interface.

1. Enable captions on source VOD

Follow the detailed steps listed here to prepare your source VOD(s): Prepare source VOD(s)

After you have prepared your source VOD, follow the steps below to add captions to the VOD:

  1. Navigate to Video on Demand (https://app.streamshark.io/v2/vod) and select the VOD you have prepared 
  2. Navigate to the Captions Tab.

  3. Upload WebVTT captions file if you are manually supplying captions for the VOD source. Select the caption language from the dropdown and click 'Update Captions'. 

    manual_captions.png

  4. If you are using the Automatic caption type, select the video language, optionally specify a vocabulary, and select if you want the captions to be automatically approved. Click 'Update Captions'. Depending on the length of the video, it may take some time for captions to be automatically generated.

    automatic_captions.png

Enabling captions using the legacy VOD user interface.

1. Enable captions on source VOD

Follow the detailed steps listed here to prepare your source VOD(s): Prepare source VOD(s)

After you have prepared your source VOD, follow the steps below to add captions to the VOD:

  1. Navigate to Video on Demand and select the VOD you have prepared 
  2. Navigate to the Settings Tab. You should see Caption settings under the Advanced Settings section (If you do not see this option, please contact StreamShark Support)

  3. Upload WebVTT captions file if you are manually supplying captions to the VOD source and click 'Save'.

    Please note that you must specify the language code according to the tooltip below. The order of the caption files will determine how it will be displayed on the video player.

  4. If you are using the Automatic caption type, select the language you would like to process your captions and click on 'Process'. You will need to wait until the captions have been processed, then click 'Approve' once they have been processed.

2. Prepare the Live Schedule

Follow the detailed steps below in order to prepare a Live Schedule using the VOD(s) you have prepared in the previous step and start the Live Schedule:

  1. Create the Live Schedule
  2. Add Video On Demand (VOD) content to the Live Schedule
  3. Going Live

3. View captions

  1. Navigate to the Schedule you created in the previous step and head to the 'Links' section
  2. Copy one of the Player links into a new tab (Preferably the 'New Player' link)
  3. Click on the Play button on the player page
  4. Open the settings button at the bottom of the player and select the language of your caption
  5. Captions should appear to be visible (Initially, the captions might not display as it may take some time to load)

Notes

  • Multiple languages are supported for manual captions (up to 6)
  • For automatic captions, we currently only support 1 caption per VOD
  • The order of the languages displayed in the player is the same order uploaded from the VOD settings page
  • Captions have a minimum display duration of 100ms

Caveats

  • This feature applies to standard HLS streams only. This feature is not supported for DASH or any Low latency/CMAF based streams
  • We recommend generating the WebVTT file with caption text limited to around 30-40 characters per cue. Keeping the cue text within this range ensures end times are calculated correctly and captions to display for the appropriate duration otherwise the caption WebVTT generation process can struggle to accurately calculate the cue's end time, which causes captions to be dismissed earlier than expected (Using StreamShark's native caption generation can mitigate this issue)

The following apply if you have multiple VODs in a playlist and at least one of them contain captions:

  •  
    • The language selection options will be a set of all languages available for all VODs in the playlist. For example: If VOD 1 contains captions in English and Spanish and VOD 2 contains captions in French and Dutch then in the player, you will be given the option to select English, Spanish, French or Dutch captions regardless of if the current item has those caption languages available
    • The player will provide the option to select captions in the player even if there are no captions present in the current item
    • We recommend using our New player for this specific use case as using the legacy player can cause captions to de-sync or disappear entirely

 

 

 

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