How to Choose the Best Enterprise Video Captioning Services

If you’re creating a large amount of enterprise video, that usually means that you’re publishing multiple high-quality videos online each day or even each week. With a large team, it’s helpful to utilize an enterprise video captioning and transcription service that can keep up with your high output accurately. Many corporate video captioning needs come from a large volume of videos that need to be transcribed or include captions. 

This includes an internal and customer-facing video that promotes specific products or provides industry education. Below are a few considerations that go into choosing the right captioning and transcription service, including integrations, cost, ease-of-use, and adaptive technology. 

1. Price

Because how much work goes into audio and video production, transcription and captioning costs can be high. Some enterprise video captioning services charge a premium flat-fee rate per file,  no matter the length or complexity. However, it’s usually most affordable to get charged by the minute instead, especially if video length varies. 

A flat fee would only make sense if the average length of videos is a higher cost to calculate as per minute instead of a flat fee. Comparison shop a few of the available video solutions to determine what pricing model works best for you.

2. Speed

Not only do large corporate video producers need an affordable video solution, but they also want it done as fast as possible. If the production team is waiting days for transcription or captioning to get done, this could affect the video marketing timeline. A quick turnaround is vital to your enterprise workflow.

A good example of this would be large news outlets that have tons of video footage to caption. By using an enterprise service that promises fast turnaround time of hours instead of days, the footage is transcribed and ready to be published on a website more quickly. 

3. Accuracy

If videos are transcribed and captioned fast and affordably, that solves the majority of most enterprise video creators’ needs. But the final leg of the necessities needed for great content delivery is accuracy.

If transcription and captioning video solutions aren’t accurate, they won’t save the requestor near as much time and energy. This is because someone is forced to correct all the errors made during the transcription process. For long or complicated files, this can lead to hours of additional work that could be spent on further video creation or other projects.

Depending on your specific needs, it’s paramount to choose a solution that promises high accuracy, whether it’s done through AI (artificial intelligence) or manually. Paid tools are often much more accurate than free services, such as Google docs.

The accuracy of your transcription and video captions are especially important to your customer base that is deaf or hard of hearing. Making videos accessible to this audience will not only improve their experience but also help your customer service team when sharing help videos with customers. High quality closed captioning services like Rev provides 99% accuracy and ensure a positive customer viewing experience.

4. Usability & Integrations

Speed, cost, and accuracy make up the trifecta of “must-haves” for an ideal content delivery service for video transcription. However, many large-scale video creation production departments have a need for the following services:

• Youtube integration and Vimeo integration: transcribe your existing content from video platforms like YouTube or Vimeo and have the caption file uploaded automatically.
• Zapier integration: use automated API “links” to process work faster
• Brightcove integration: Link your account with a provider like Rev and you’ll be able to order and receive transcription or captioning requests through the Brightcove platform.
• Custom solutions: look for developer access to an enterprise video captioning API to build a custom solution for what is going to work best for your needs
• White-label solution: you may want to build a white-label captioning solution for your business or a client application

These integrations make it easier to streamline your workflow and get more videos processed and ready for publishing in less time.

Transcription and Caption API

Video content management can also happen faster when you’re able to use an API that provides real-time streaming captioning and transcription. This allows you to get the fastest results because the text is being transcribed in real-time by using the API. 

APIs like Rev’s use thousands of transcribed documents and files that were done manually to teach the AI how to properly transcribe audio files. The real examples help AI technology learn the nuances of human speech patterns and dialects from speakers around the world.

We need real-time transcription and captioning for those who have auditory impairments or are unable to listen to a video or sound file. For instance, having captions allows users to watch your videos on their subway commute home or while sitting in a waiting room. Reading captions allows the viewer to not disturb other people nearby. Other ways the best caption API or video service works for you is to answer these types of common enterprise needs:

• Needing digital captions and transcriptions of files in an expansive content management system or library, done in bulk (or as fast as possible)
• It should be low to no-risk to try a video transcription or captioning service to see how it works for your business. Don’t feel pressured to get locked into a contract with a provider that isn’t going to meet your needs.
• Need for industry-standard captions that can be delivered not only to online video sites but potentially to streaming platforms, and TV broadcast outlets. Many large media corporations need captions in multiple formats like SRT, SCC, depending on what platform they’re delivering to. Rev charges only once per content and gives you any format, whenever.

These needs are unique to enterprise-level corporations that are providing video experience across multiple platforms and screens. An audio transcription or captioning service that can scale — from single to bulk orders — is the best solution for a company whose needs may change over time. The best service will be able to grow and expand with your business video needs, while also scaling back when appropriate to save you time and money.

5. Compatibility

Besides integrations, caption and video files also need to be easy to access and use across multiple platforms. For instance, transcription files should come in formats that are easy to view, share, and store in cloud storage solutions like Google Drive and Dropbox. The files should also be able to be utilized not only on online video sites like YouTube and Vimeo but other streaming platforms or TV broadcast outlets.

The video file, caption, and transcription formats needed are going to vary depending on where they are being published. For instance, a native video player embedded on a website is likely going to have different requirements and parameters for files than a platform like YouTube.

Because there are so many nuances to native video players, many companies elect to use an online platform and then embed that hosted video onto their site. This also gives the video a chance to get found through this additional channel. For example, YouTube is actually the biggest search engine in the world. So hosting your videos on YouTube instead of your website may get them more visibility and traction because they are discoverable by video searches.

Social Media Platforms

Uploading a video to YouTube or Vimeo makes it much easier to share the video across social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. However, some studies have shown that these platforms prefer video files to be uploaded directly onto their site instead of shared as a link hosted somewhere else. 

Many platforms don’t allow separate caption files to be added to a video upload, and instead, require the captions to already be “burned” into a video. This means that the captions are already overlayed on top of the video before it is uploaded to a site like Twitter or Instagram.

Adding transcription and captions brings a lot of value and benefit to your users. It helps users who have disabilities consume the content and also provides all users the option to view the video without sound. 

Adding transcription of video to your pages can also help search engines better index the content in a text format. Weigh your options carefully and choose the solution that will give you the best value, without sacrificing accuracy, speed, and tool compatibility. Then you’ll be able to make transcription and captioning an asset instead of a liability or annoyance.

Talk to an Enterprise Transcription Expert