Adding Subtitles to Video Modules

Subtitles make your videos more accessible to a wider audience, most notably opening up your content to audiences across the world, but also to those that benefit from text, such as people with hearing impairments.

With Academy of Mine, you can upload your own subtitle files in addition to the videos, and we will automatically sync them up. This requires a specific format called WebVTT (.vtt extension) for your subtitles, and in this guide, we'll be going over how to create the .vtt extension as well as how to add that to your video module.

You will only be able to add subtitles to videos that have been directly uploaded.--if you are adding videos to the module via Vimeo or YouTube, you will need to configure the subtitle settings on the platforms in question.

Creating a WebVTT file

WebVTT, or .vtt extensions, allow you to define subtitles for a video at certain time stamps. You can learn more at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebVTT_API

To create your WebVTT file, follow these steps:

Open a new file in Notepad or a similar .txt Plain Text Editor.
On the very first line write:
WEBVTT
Leave the second line blank
On the third line, add a unique identifier which can be text or number. It's best to use numbers and start with the number 1.
On the fourth line, the time for the first cue has to be specified. This is the timestamp in the video when the text will be displayed. For a cue starting at second 1 and ending second 5, it would be written as:
00:01.000 --> 00:05.000
On the next line, write the caption for the cue.
To add another line of text for a new cue, leave a blank line and start with the second identifier.
You can validate the Webvtt content at: https://quuz.org/webvtt/
Save your file with the .vtt extension.

Adding Subtitles (.vtt) to Video Modules

Once you have created your WebVTT file (.vtt), you can add it to your video module.

From your Dashboard sidebar menu, select Courses. Under Modules select Videos.
Select or Create the Video Module you would like to add subtitles to.
On the Edit Video page, select Direct Upload as the Upload Method.
Upload or choose the video you want to use for this module from your Media Library by selecting Browse Media.
Select the Upload Subtitle Manually option. Click Upload Subtitles File and select your .vtt file.

You can write your cues in the Existing Subtitles area, but we recommend creating an external file.
Click Update Module when you're done to save your changes.

Using AI Generated Subtitles

Instead of manually creating a subtitles file, you can utilize AI generated subtitles. This will only work for videos that have been added via Direct Upload.

Subtitles that are generated by AI may not be as accurate as using a .vtt subtitles file and can be affected by a variety of factors. Recording quality, how clearly a person is speaking, the volume at which it was recorded, and other aspects of your video file will determine how accurately auto generated subtitles are displayed.

Choose Direct Upload as your Upload Method.
Click the Browse Media button. You can upload a new video or select a previously uploaded one.
Select the Auto Generate Subtitles (Using AI) option and your video will have subtitles added automatically.
Click Update Module when you're done to save your changes.

Video Walkthrough of Adding Subtitles

If you're more of a visual learner, check out this video on how to add subtitles.