Add Captions to MediaSpace Videos

Adding captions to videos improves accessibility for all viewers, regardless of their physical abilities. Captions can help enhance viewers’ comprehension in noisy or quiet environments, and boost engagement by making content easier to understand.

Automatic Machine Captions at PSU

At PSU, machine captions are automatically generated and enabled for all videos uploaded into MediaSpace. This includes both manually uploaded videos as well as those automatically migrated into MediaSpace from Zoom recordings.

To ensure that your machine captions are ADA accessible, they must be accurate. Auto-captions are rarely 100% accurate. You should review video captions carefully, especially for technical terms and names, and edit your captions for accuracy.

What if I don’t see automatic captions on my videos?

In limited cases, you may need to generate and/or enable machine captions on your videos, if they do not show up automatically.

Videos created with Express Capture will need to have captions generated and enabled.
Videos created with Zoom, Kaltura Capture, or uploaded manually before March 2025 may need to have captions generated and enabled.
Videos created with Zoom, Kaltura Capture, or uploaded manually after March 2025 may need to have captions enabled.

Generate Machine Captions

Select the desired media from your My Media list.
Select Actions.
Select Captions Requests from the dropdown menu.
Complete the captions order request. The default selections are:
- Service: Machine
- Source Media Language: English (You may change the language selection if needed.)
- Feature: Captions
Click Submit to request machine captions.

Machine caption files are typically generated within 30 minutes of the request. Once the files have been generated, you must manually enable them on your media.

Enable Machine Captions Settings

Once you’ve confirmed that your captions are accurate, you will need to enable them to be viewable on your video. To do this:

Select the desired media from your My Media list.
Open the Actions menu (1) and select Edit (2) from the dropdown menu.

Choose the Captions (3) tab below the media.
A table appears that shows your caption file. In this table to the far right is the Show Captions on Player icon (4). Use this icon to toggle your captions on.