New in Storyline 360: Video Transcripts

I love this feature! Thank you so much!

So we still need to type all of the text into the closed captions, correct? When I select "add captions" to an mp4 file in Storyline, this is what I get (see attached screen shot).

I then need to listen to the whole video and type in the captions. There isn't any way to have Storyline use audio to text to generate what it thinks is being said, is there? That way, we'd just need to edit rather than type everything. 

Hello Christa,

Thanks for reaching out! 

Storyline 360 currently doesn't support the automatic generation of closed caption text from media, but I added your voice to the feature request that we already have open for this enhancement.

We'll be sure to leave a message here if we have any updates to share! 

Hello, I'd like to report an issue with the new Transcript button on the video controls. It is read by JAWS as "open toggle button" which isn't as descriptive as it should be. Perhaps "Open Transcript toggle button" would work, but as it is right now it is unclear what it does to screen reader learners. 

Hi Michele!

Thanks for sharing the feedback!

Regarding the verbiage for screen readers - this can be customized via Player Properties -> Text Labels -> In English, it's row 237. By default, it will be set to "Open", however it can be edited to "Open Transcripts".

Please let me know if you have any more questions!

Hi team,

This feature is great!

However, our project has 20 SCORM packages in same series.

we already did 10s package from previous Storyline version.
Since the new update, the new version will contain this feature. It becomes inconsistency within the series.

Is there anyway to turn "Transcript button" off out of the video player?

Hi Chai,

Great question! I understand you would like to remove the transcript option from the player so your project is consistent. I’m happy to get some information for you about that!

You can go about this in one of two ways. You can reinstall the previous version (Build 3.73.30119.0) and publish the ten remaining courses or you can republish the ten courses in that latest version of Storyline 360 to take advantage of the new video transcript feature.

Here are the steps to reinstall an older version of Storyline 360.

1.  Open the Articulate 360 app.

2.  Click on the arrow next to Storyline 360.

3.  Click Other Versions.

4.  Click Install next to the version you would like to install.

Thanks for reaching out!

Great idea, but I can't get it to work. The documentation states "turn on accessible video controls" (attached). But I can't find anything specifically labeled "accessible video controls," in either the player (attached) or video options (attached).

Please help me understand what I am missing or not understanding.

Hi John, 

   In Storyline 360, when you select a video, you should see "Video Tools Options" on the main ribbon. After you open the video tool options, you'll see "Video Controls:" which is a dropdown menu. If you select Dark or Light, this will show the Accessible Video Controls.

When you have a video that has closed captions and enable dark or light video controls, Storyline 360 will automatically generate synchronized video transcripts from closed captions. Please make sure you're on Storylline 360 Ver. 3.74.30180.0

I hope this helps!  

~Ronnie

For those who have commented about being excited to see this feature, how do you see this working better than closed captioning?

Ronnie,

Thanks for the quick get-back. Man, you folks are good. I figured out the problem: The audio for my video clip was a separate audio recording I added in post (there is no audio on the video itself). So although I was able to create captioning from the audio track that appeared over the video, Storyline was not able to associate the captioning on the audio track with the video.

In short, the captioning that drives the transcript must be of the audio in the video itself, not on an audio track that is separate from the video.

Thank you very much. It works great!

I left feedback in this dedicated post before I saw this, so this is a repeat of that.

There are two things missing that I would want to see before this is useful to us:

1. The transcript needs to be clickable. It's a great navigational tool for learners wanting to navigate around the video. People are used to this from places such as EDx and Microsoft Stream so having a non-interactive transcript might confuse some learners.
2. There needs to be a variable that we can access easily via triggers, as with closed captions. At the moment the button to turn on a transcript is very small, only appears when you hover over the video and there is no alt-text to explain what it does. I don't think many people will find it, and a good UI shouldn't need its own instruction.

I hope that Articulate can address these points because this has the potential to make video content much more useful to students who require assistive technologies and those without.

Hey Chris! 

Thank you for this feedback! I have feature requests around both of those points and will make sure you're included on them. Please don't worry, we are not done with Video Transripts. 

Having a clickable transcript that navigates to the section clicked would definitely add value that closed captioning does not. I like that suggestion.

My reading speed can vary wildly from the speed material is being presented, particularly with different topics; and what excites me most about this feature is being able to see where I am in context of the whole script. Certainly, clickable transcription would be amazing. My favorite example of that is the transcript function on Oyez.org (example legal case on Oyez.org, select the "oral argument" media link on the left). 

Thanks, that makes sense. Using the notes tab to view the full transcript doesn't serve the same purpose of visualizing the whole transcript then, correct?

"The notes tab" ... interesting that you would bring that up. Wouldn't you agree, Articulate Staff? (See: "In Storyline, can you globally change the fonts in the Notes tab".) Also, thank you Articulate Staff for reorganizing your updates review process. I look forward to seeing the changes.

Hi Pierre,

I'm happy to chime in! Global Notes formatting is not currently on our feature roadmap, but I'll be sure to update this discussion if our team decides to reroute. 

I'm also glad to hear that you appreciate the changes to our updates review process! Please don't hesitate to connect with our support team if you have other feedback and concerns regarding this.

 Hi John, One way to overcome that (I think, I haven't tried it with this new feature, but it is something I have often done) is to export the captions in your audio - see audio tools option, that will export the captions in a .vtt format, and then you can import the .vtt directly into the video.

Thanks Ange CM,

Sounds as if it would work. I could have also recorded the VO right in the video editing software (Abode Premiere) which was used to edit the video in the first place, and which would have been no more difficult or time consuming than recording it in Storyline. But I would have needed to know to do that, which I do now.

And such is the value of these forums: To talk shop with others and determine what we coulda/shoulda done that would have made out work easier and/or our product better.

This is a great new feature! I think video transcripts are very useful and helpful for learners who want to review the content, access captions, or search for keywords. 

Best regards, Hanna from CodeIT