Captions and Subtitles for Offline Adobe Connect

 

Adobe Connect is a popular web conferencing platform for web meetings, eLearning, and webinars. Native support for real-time captions is available through an interface for live captioners. However, adding offline captions to a recorded meeting is tricky and requires a bit of a workaround.

This article provides step by step instructions on how to add offline captions to an Adobe Connect recording so it can be viewed with YouTube, iTunes, QuickTime, and any mobile devices. You’ll also be able to upload your captioned recording to a web server or make it available for offline viewing.

How to add captions to Adobe Connect

Step 1 – Create an Offline Adobe Connect Recording

Creating an offline recording takes approximately the same amount of time as the duration of the original meeting.

1. From your Adobe Connect account, click Meetings (or Training), and then select the meeting or classroom that contains the recording.

2. Click Recordings and click Make Offline beside the recording you want to caption.

Note: You may have to install an Adobe Connect add-in.

3. A window with help text will appear. Click Proceed with Offline Recording and save the FLV file to your computer.

4. The meeting will begin playing and the offline recording will be created as it is playing. If you want to capture the entire meeting, play the meeting from start to finish. You also have the ability to record portions of the meeting by clicking the Stop and Save button. The Pause/Resume button temporarily stops creation of the offline recording. When you resume, the recording will continue from where it left off, and the finished recording will be one continuous file without any interruptions. When the recording process finishes, close the offline recorder window.

How to caption Adobe Connect

Screenshot in Adobe Connect with Meetings, Recordings and Make Offline selected

Step 2 – Submit the Adobe Connect Recording for Captioning

1. Log into your 3Play Media account.

2. From the Upload menu, select Direct Upload and follow the on-screen prompts to specify turnaround and other options. For additional details, read the support article on uploading videos for captioning.

3. You will receive an email notification when your captions are ready.

Screenshot in Adobe Connect with Upload and Direct Upload selected

Step 3 – Download Your Adobe Connect Recording with Captions

This step will produce a self-contained M4V file with embedded closed captions that can be turned on or off by the end user. There is also an option to produce an M4V file with open captions that are burned into the video and can’t be turned off.

1. From your 3Play Media account, select My Files from the top of the page. Select your Adobe Connect recording.

2. From the Options menu select Order Caption Encoding.

3. The caption encoding process may take up to 4 hours. Upon completion, you will receive an email notification with a link to download the video.

Screenshot Order Caption Encoding selected