Closed Captioning Bug

Feb 26, 2018

There are two separate audio files on a slide, such as male then female. After closed captioning the two tracks, the initial display of the second track flashes up a latter CC of the second track before displaying the first CC of the second track.

Every time.

Any slide.

This forces us to take an additional step to export the two tracks, combine them into a single audio track, import the new track, adjust any minor timing irregularities, then closed caption the entire track.

This is a time waste.

27 Replies
Sam Carter
Bob O'Donnell

Closed captioning is set to work with a single captions file. The new Storyline option works the same way - 1 audio track, 1 caption file. It would be nice if it worked the other way.

So... you are saying that although multiple audio files on a single slide can be closed captioned, this isn't supported?

 

Sam Carter
Wendy Farmer

Have you tried adding each audio clip to a layer with caption and triggering each layer as the previous layer completes?

If captioning more than one audio file on a slide is not supported,  some red flag should come up to disallow or at a minimum, warn the author.

The current implementation does no such thing.  I can caption the second audio track and it plays back... almost correctly.

 

Sam Carter

I'm adding the following to emphasize the seriousness of SL 360 behavior.  

Without any feedback from SL that closed captioning multiple audio tracks on a single slide is unsupported, we find in retrospect that several courses have been sent to clients with this issue. This will cost a lot of time and unpaid work to correct.

Articulate should do something about this. Either support closed captioning multiple audio tracks or disallow it.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Sam,

Do you have an example .story file you can share with us? I talked through this with a colleague who tested the following:

  • Two audio files playing at the same time, both showed closed captions once enabled. Although this isn't an ideal look - it is what I'd expect if both audio files are playing.
  • Two audio files at separate points on the timeline, and with separate closed captions and those also played normally with no overlapping. 

I attached a copy of the second file and you can view the published output here.

Sam Carter
Ashley Terwilliger

Do you have an example .story file you can share with us? I talked through this with a colleague who tested the following:

Hi Ashley,

This bug has only raised its' head recently.  The comments in this thread which didn't come from Articulate indicated that two audio tracks at separate points on the time line are not supported.

Would you please get back to us with a position on whether closed captioning two audio tracks on separate points on the timeline are supported or not supported.  Please?

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Sam,

Two audio files with closed captions at separate points on the timeline are supported. 

I was testing out another user's file this AM where they were able to demonstrate the captions that would overlap. It seems to only occur when you're using the rewind/replay button on the seekbar. That has been reported as a possible bug. 

If you also have a .story file to share I'd like to test that as well and get it into the hands of our team as they look into this.

Also, please keep in mind that anytime you can share an example file, video, screenshot, etc. that'll help us track down the problem that much faster! Thanks for your help.

Bob O'Donnell

Yep, working on that now. What I was seeing (or remember seeing) was that the CC entry boxes seemed to be tied to the timeline, not the audio clip. So no matter where I had my track start, the CCing always began at the start of the timeline.

I'm going to do a quick test clip and post it. Not sure if the CC addition has been updated since it was first introduced or not. File to follow...

Sam Carter
Bob O'Donnell

Yep, working on that now. What I was seeing (or remember seeing) was that the CC entry boxes seemed to be tied to the timeline, not the audio clip. So no matter where I had my track start, the CCing always began at the start of the timeline.

Never noticed your bug.

We saw two bugs:

1 - The start of the second audio track would briefly flash the CC that was 2nd or 3rd on that track before displaying the 1st.

2 - We had the closed captioning of slide 18 displaying the captioning of slide 35. This was a real shocker so we reverted to single audio tracks.

 

Bob O'Donnell

Ok - I just tested a short file and I'm seeing what Ashley reported. Maybe this was tweaked because I didn't get the same result the first time playing with the CC feature.

I have 2 short tracks. When you simply view the slide the CCing plays fine. If you mess with the Seekbar or rewind, then it seems like the track you were viewing gets left on screen and the other track displays over top of it. Which in itself is a little odd because I thought the team said the CCing track box was locked in place. Kind of interesting and annoying at the same time.

https://360.articulate.com/review/content/0f736dad-d0d3-44b4-8b18-be5d40cb3357/review

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Bob and Sam, 

The issue I saw and that was reported to my team was how Closed captions begin to overlap when using the seekbar rewind/replay button. These captions were connected to 2 separate audio files, and did not overlap on the timeline. 

So, can you have two or more audio files with closed captions on a slide? Yes.

But, if you use the rewind/replay button that could show the captions overlapping - and we're looking at this as a bug. 

Also, I did test adding two audio files with closed captions at the same time on the slide timeline. That also worked - but I'd have to wonder under what conditions you'd set that up? Or, how you'd expect it to work and display?  

Bob, the example you shared didn't show me the second set of audio files captions at all in your Review link, but I could easily see them while previewing in your .story file. Is that the issue you're experiencing as well? What update of Storyline 360 are you using? I published a copy of it here and that version did work (toggle on the CC buttons). 

Katie Riggio

Hi there. I'm excited to let you all know that Update 22 for Storyline 360 is live!

Remember the issue where closed captions began overlapping when using the seekbar Rewind/Replay button? That issue is fixed! 🔧

Check out all the new features and fixes here, and here's how to update Storyline 360 to enjoy everything this release has to offer. Be sure to let us know what you think!

Tony Lynn

I have a slightly different scenario. I have videos on different slide layers which are shown when the user clicks on objects on the base layer. If you pause the video and then close the layer the CC that was on screen at the time remains on screen even if you click to play a different video. If you repeat this behaviour on several layers you can have 3 or 4 different sets of CC on the screen at any time!!

Do I have any other options other than splitting the videos onto multiple slides?

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Tony,

Thanks for reaching out and letting us know what you are experiencing with your course.

Let me clarify that this is when you have a video on a base layer and you are opening other slide layers. Is that correct? Do you have the slide layer set to 'hide objects on base layer'?

We are looking into that specific issue. 

If you have a sample that we can use for testing, that'd be great or if you're seeing a different issue we'd like to take a look as well.

Tony Lynn

Hi

There are no videos on the base layer just the triggers to show the other layers. Each video is on it's own layer set to hide other slide layers when shown. Closed captions are turned on/off using a button in the purple bar at the top of the slide. If you pause a video whilst closed captions are displayed and then close the slide layer the last caption remains on the screen even if you turn captions off and on again or if you open a new video. If you repeat these steps you can end up with six sets of captions on the screen at once! You can take a look here.

Alyssa Gomez

Hi Tony,

That definitely sounds odd, and we'd love to investigate this further. I clicked your Articulate Review link, but the content isn't available there.

Would you mind sharing a slide or two with us? That way we can get a clear picture of what's going on. You can send that Storyline file to us privately in a case here. We'll be standing by! 

Katie Riggio

Appreciate you keeping us posted, Tony. What a mystery!

While I'm glad to hear you're able to work around this problem by moving the videos onto separate slides, I can appreciate that this option might not be ideal. As my teammate, Alyssa, shared we're always happy to take a close look at your .story file to see if there is anything else you can try. 😊

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.