Transcribe your content - FOR FREE?
Transcribe my content...for free?
Yup, you can thank Youtube for it later, :)
I’m always on the hunt to create new and interesting content that resonates with my audience by teaching them an important lesson.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about incorporating video soundbites from my various speaking and podcast appearances so that I can share not just my thoughts through articles, but also, through my actual voice.
You know, I wanna break it up a bit for you guys, :)
Rather than watching each video end-to-end and take notes throughout, I realized I could simply read a transcript and save myself the aggravation that option A brings. So, I reached out to a couple colleagues and they gave me some options for transcriber services of all different shapes and sizes.
Right before I was going to sign up for a paid service, a fellow portrait photographer colleague, Maurice Jager, suggested the golden ticket option - it’s golden because it’s FREE and simple to accomplish.
All you need to do is upload your videos to your YouTube account, and they do most of the heavy lifting for you.
As a default of the site, YouTube create subtitles for all the videos that are uploaded for the hearing impaired - therefore, if you’ve already posted videos, you ALREADY have subtitles for that video that can be leveraged as a transcript.
Let me walk you through the process of extracting those subtitles into a form that you can use.
For the sake of this conversation, let’s assume you’ve already uploaded a video for which you want the transcription.
Here’s what you do:
STEP 1 - Once you’re signed into Youtube, click on your avatar in the upper right hand corner of the screen, and, from this drop-down menu, select CREATOR STUDIO.
Please note - YouTube is updating their Creator Studio and is currently beta testing it - I have defaulted my channel to stay in Creator Studio Classic mode and this article reflects this setting.
STEP 2 - From the DASHBOARD view, select the video for which you want to create a transcription.
In my case, I selected the first video at the top of the list, BLAH TO BOOM.
STEP 3 - On the top menu bar, select SUBTITLES/CC
Please note - the default subtitles are in English, but, there is an option in this dropdown menu to change that in order to get them created in another language.
STEP 4 - Under PUBLISHED, click the ENGLISH (AUTOMATIC) button.
Generally speaking, it takes YouTube a couple hours to generate subtitles for your video, depending on the length of the clip, so, don’t expect to jump right into it moments after you upload - as my colleague said, "upload the video, and walk away for a bit..."
My suggestion?
Work on clips that you’ve already uploaded - that way, the subtitles will have been published already - you just need to export the transcription out of YouTube and onto your computer. That's not to say that you shouldn't upload new videos - I just meant that if you'd like to get started on this process right away, pick clips that already are primed to go.
Speaking of that…
STEP 5 - Export Subtitles into a singular, text-readable file
After you click the button under the Subtitles/CC menu, that will prompt the subtitles to pop up on screen, and sit on the left side of the video clip. If you press play, you can see the titles move in unison with the video. Pretty cool, right?
Also, notice that not only do the words pull up, but, the timecode when they were said are also attached. This comes in handy if you plan to chop up the video into short, soundbites - you will be able to find exactly where that soundbite is without having to watch the whole thing and fin it on your own.
Thanks for doin it right, Youtube!
One drawback, however; since a portion of this clip includes a one-on-one conversation, you can’t tell who is speaking when, unless you play the video to hear who’s words it is - or, just remember what you said, of course, :) A slight challenge, but, it still doesn't take away from the massive value offered with this option!
Once you see the subtitles on the screen, now it’s time to get them out of YouTube and onto your computer directly.
STEP 6 - Click ACTIONS button and export as an .SRT file
Once you export the subtitles as an .srt file, you can open it up on whatever text-readable program you have on your computer. I open mine in TextEdit on my MacBook Pro. Here's what it looks like:
Although I got a transcript because I wanted to quickly thumb through my thoughts to pull video soundbites for social media posts, these .srt file transcripts can be used in several ways:
Directly pull the text and create a quote post, either as a text-only post, or incorporate it into a branded lifestyle portrait.
Use your words to create a full-blown blog post from it.
For you video-saavy folks out there, you can pull this .srt file into your video editing program and lay it over the video and marry your subtitles to your video outside of YouTube.
It’s always interesting to add new wrinkles to your creative process, and, this one provided by YouTube for free really allows for some creative flexibility that you can leverage in a variety of ways.
After reading this article, I’m just curious - do you ever see yourself following through on this process to create transcriptions for your talks and other promotional videos?
PS - For those of you who aren’t in the know, I mail out these blogs 3x a week, and lemme tell you, they’re a real party, so, if you’d like to get in on this, sign up for it here and I’ll throw in a free gift for you, because I care, :)