Publish as MP4 with subtitles

Hi Vladimir and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :)

When publishing your Storyline 360 course to Video, currently closed captions are not included. 

We have a feature request we are tracking to include these and I've added this conversation to the report so that we can share updates with you here.

Hi Leslie,

Thanks for the info.

Have a good day.

Hi Leslie,

Any update on this feature?

Regards,

Seema

Hello Seema!

We don't have an update to share yet on this feature for adding captions to the published mp4 file. You're now subscribed to this discussion, so you'll be updated when we return with an update!

This feature is an ADA issue and I have seen threads that go back 4+ years. We have seen many other updates but STILL no update to this feature. For those of us that chose Articulate 360 for the accessibility options, this feels unfair, misleading and not a priority.  To continue to provide a response that this is documented, but NOT provide a solution, is technically NO response. Especially with ADA compliance being a requirement and no longer an option. An ETA hasn't even been provided. Its extremely disappointing and misleading for the software.

Any updates on this?

Are there any updates on this feature other than it's on the list?  This is a major accessibility issue and needs to be moved to the top of the list. More and more industries, not just the government, require all learning to have static closed captions, especially on MP4 videos.  We do a lot of screen recording to demonstrate how to do things as help files for our users and closed captions is a non-negotiable requirement.

This is a very sad result :(

why not embed the videos via youtube or vimeo? They support CC.

Can you download the videos from Youtube with the CC defaulted on?

not download - play in iframe - with the youtube player

Right, everyone in this thread need CC defaulted on for whatever program they're putting their MP4 files in.  It's pretty much mandatory for most educational programs to have it now.  The only options available come at a high cost and we're already paying for this program.

Any work arounds found? Following this thread (in addition to a few others on this topic)

Hi, everyone!

I have some great news to share. We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 73, we’ve included important fixes and new features!

One new feature we’ve included:

Boost video accessibility by including closed captions when publishing projects as MP4 video files.

To take advantage of this update, launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer, and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here.

Please let me know if you need additional help!

Hi Kelly,

so I how do we get the previous behaviour, i.e. subtitles hardcoded in the video, back? Subtitles as a separate file are great if the platform you're using supports e.g. .vtt uploads. 

However, if the platform doesn't do that, you need one single file with everything in it. 

Cheers

Martin

Hi Martin,

I would love to get you some information about this! First, I have a follow-up question. Can you describe the previous behavior you saw when publishing your course with closed captions to MP4? I would like to get you the best information possible. 

Thanks for reaching out!

Hi John,

in the previous version of Storyline (which I've downgraded to in the meantime; January build), publishing a slide with a video on it (that also has captions) as "Video" results in one single .mp4 file. 

In the latest version of Storyline, I get an .mp4 and a .vtt file instead. Without the latter, the former does not display any subtitles, which is a problem for when I have to upload it to a platform that does not support adding .vtt files, too. 

I mean, subtitles via .vtt look much nicer and don't flicker the way they did before (when they were hardcoded), so I'd love to use the latest Storyline has to offer, but if the platform I'm uploading the video to does not want to play nicely...

Hi Martin,

Thanks for sharing the details of your experience with us! Accessibility concerns have driven the feature change regarding producing a subtitle file when publishing to Video.

Do those platforms support other subtitle formats, such as SRT? If so, you may use a tool to convert the VTT subtitle file to SRT before uploading. 

If they only support MP4 files with hard-coded subtitles, you can merge the VTT file to its MP4 counterpart using a third-party tool. For starters, you may use Handbrake, free software, to merge the subtitle to the video. But if I'm correct, it only supports SRT files, so you need to convert the VTT to SRT first. There are online tools that will merge the MP4 to VTT directly.

Let me know if that helps!

Hi Eric,

I've looked into third-party tools as well, but let's just say it's not that easy to use them in a Corporate environment where all software needs to be greenlit by IT/Security. 

But since Articulate has their stamp of approval, I'm just using a previous version for the time being to hardcode subtitles. 

Hello Kelly,

Do you know if there is a way to increase or decrease or choose the policy in the closed captions when you publish projects as MP4 video files?

Thanks a lot in advance for your answer.

Hi Patricia, 

Happy to help. 

Can you clarify what you mean by modifying the policy for closed captions when a course is published as a video so we can get you the information that you need?

Hi Kelly, the Update 73 link appears to be broken, but I tried publishing again and the mp4s don't have the closed captioning attached. I also tried with the Storyline 360 x64 Beta version but the vtt file still publishes separate from the mp4. Are there any other ways to connect the files within one of the Articulate applications?

Hi Amanda!

Happy to jump in here!

Sorry you had trouble accessing the link Kelly shared! Earlier this week we identified an issue where some users were unable to access pages on Articulate.com. We've implemented a fix for the issues, and things are loading normally now.

If you're comfortable sharing a copy of your .story file, I'd be happy to take a closer look to see why closed captions are not being included in the published-to-Video output. Feel free to upload a copy here in the discussion or privately through a support case.

Looking forward to hearing from you!