This blog article is obsolete
The Brightcove integration has been updated. Follow the link below for step-by-step instructions on how to create and publish captions, subtitles, or an interactive transcript with Brightcove.

See the updated documentation for Brightcove captions, subtitles, or an interactive transcript

Watch a rerun of the webinar “How to Make Your Online Video Accessible & Searchable“, hosted by Brightcove and 3Play Media.

Overview

3Play Media has a complete integration with Brightcove. From your 3Play Media account you can import and process your Brightcove files. The Brightcove player can be set up to communicate with the 3Play Media system and to display closed captions, subtitles, or an interactive transcript. You can monitor the status of your files from your 3Play Media account. Follow the steps below to get started.

Step 1 – Link Your 3Play Media Account with Your Brightcove Account

1. Log into your Brightcove account and navigate to Account Settings > API Management. If you do not see this option, you may need to upgrade your service with Brightcove.

2. Find the read API token with URL Access. Click the button “Copy the token to the clipboard” under the Manage column.

3. Log into your 3Play Media account at http://account.3playmedia.com/.

4. Navigate to Upload > Import From Linked Accounts > Brightcove.

5. Enter your read with URL Access API token and click Link Brightcove Account. Videos from your Brightcove account will be displayed on the page.

Step 2 – Import and Process Your Brightcove Videos

1. After linking your 3Play Media account with Brightcove, click the button “Process Video” to import and process the video. Metadata for the file, such as title and Video ID, will be imported as well. Videos that have already been processed will show up with “Imported” status.

2. Specify the folder to upload to and turnaround time. Standard turnaround is 4 business days. Rush Service is 1 business day.
 
3. You can track job status in the My Files page of your 3Play Media account.

Step 3 (to add closed captions) – Create a Brightcove Player with Caption Support

In order to add closed captions to your videos, you first need to set up a Brightcove player with captioning functionality. This is a one-time setup process.

1. In your Brightcove account, navigate to the Publishing tab and create a new Player.

2. From the Template dropdown, select the Accessible Video Player.

3. On the Global tab of the player Settings, check the box Enable ActionScript/JavaScript APIs.

4. Click on the Plug-Ins tab of the player settings to add the Brightcove captions swf. In the URL field, enter: http://admin.brightcove.com/viewer/plugins/ClosedCaptionsModule.swf

5. Click Save Changes.

6. Create a custom metadata field that the player will reference when pulling up the captions for each video. Go back to your Account Homepage and click on the Account Settings. Select the Video Fields tab and create a new text field. You can call the Display Name anything you like, but make sure that the Internal Name is “dfxppath”.

Step 4 (to add closed captions) – Add a Caption File to a Video

1. Log in to your 3Play Media account and go to the My Files page. Then click on the Publish tab to the right to select the Preview Captions link.

2. Scroll down to find the DFXP format and copy the URL given.

3. Go back to your Brightcove Media Library and select the video that you will be adding captions to. Click on the Edit button to change the properties.

4. Click on the Custom Fields tab on the top right. You should see the custom metadata field that you created. In that field, paste the URL to the DFXP caption file for that video.

5. Click Save Changes. Now you can publish your video!

How to Add an Interactive Transcript

Installing an interactive transcript on your website allows users to navigate, search, and interact with the Brightcove player. In order for the 3Play Media interactive transcript to communicate with the Brightcove player, you need to insert a snippet of code (“interactive transcript embed code”) to the website page that contains the Brightcove player. The embed code and more detailed installation instructions are available in the documentation section of your 3Play Media account and in the Brightcove Get Started Guide.

The size and styling of the interactive transcript can be customized or you can use one of the pre-built skins.

How to Enable Social Video Clipping

The social video clipping feature lets users quickly create and share a section of a video simply by highlighting the spoken words in the interactive transcript. Clicking the share button generates a unique link that can be emailed or shared through Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets. The unique link contains the video start and stop information. When users click through it brings them back to your site and plays only that section of video.

By default, Social Video Clipping is enabled. It can be disabled by setting the “can_clip” attribute in the interactive transcript embed code to False.

Additional Resources

Brightcove Get Started Guide
Rerun of joint webinar by 3Play Media and Brightcove
Additional information about interactive transcripts
Additional information about social video clipping
Frequently asked questions
Video tutorials
Example of an interactive transcript with a Brightcove player