Captioning in the Text panel
Often, captions for media files are created separately from the corresponding media file, and then saved in an external DFXP, SAMI, SRT, SUB, DFXP, or LRC file that links to the media file. As the media file plays, it displays the captions listed in the external caption file. In Microsoft Expression Encoder, you use the Text panel to import those captions saved as external files. You can also export your captions as DFXP files on publishing your content.
You can work with captions in the Text panel in the following ways:
You can import your media files that link to captions that are saved as DFXP, SAMI, SRT, SUB, DFXP, or LRC files, and import those captions too. You can then edit and encode the media sources as a single file, and export a corresponding DXFP file that contains the combined captions from your original sources, with the specific formats or styles that you assigned to them still intact. The exported files will reflect any editing changes that you made in the Timeline. Expression Encoder combines the files according to language and type.
You can work with DFXP, SAMI, SRT, SUB, DFXP, or LRC files that have captions in multiple languages.
You can think of the Text panel as a place to assemble your saved caption files, to filter them to isolate a particular language if they are multiple-language captions, and, finally, to export them as a format that Microsoft Silverlight or Windows Media supports. The Text panel is available in both a Transcoding Project and a Silverlight Project.
Each media file that you import has a corresponding row in the Text panel.
If you choose IIS Smooth Streaming as your output format, Expression Encoder will write each of your caption files to a corresponding ISMT text stream. As the smooth streaming file plays, the client displays the captions using the same smooth streaming technology that the video uses. Expression Encoder saves the .ISMT file that contains the caption information in the default output folder, along with the smooth streaming media files.
To display the Text panel
- If you can't see the Text panel, in the Window menu, click Text.
To import a caption file
In the Text panel, in the row corresponding to the file for which you want to add a caption file, click Add a closed caption file for this source. This creates a row where you can add a caption file.
Locate the capture file that you want to associate with the imported item and then click OK.
Set the options for the file according to the following descriptions:
Type Specifies whether the text in the caption file is meant to be caption, subtitle, or descriptive text.
Captions Generally contains closed-caption content that is in the same language as the media file and is meant to be a real-time rendering of the conversation in the scene.
Subtitle Generally contains a translation of the dialog in the media file, and is generally in a different language from the media file.
Description Generally contains information about the content and can be rendered as audio by using text-to-speech conversion.
Language Specifies the language of the text.
Offset Specifies the amount of time that the caption display is out of sync with the time when the caption is meant to be displayed. To correct this loss of synchronization, type the amount of time, with sub-second–accuracy if necessary, that the caption is out of sync. This will adjust the caption display by the amount of time that you typed. You can type positive or negative numbers to match the timing of the offset caption.
If you want to associate another capture file with an imported media file, repeat steps 1 through 3. You can associate multiple capture files with a single imported media file.
See also
Tasks
Captioning in a Live Broadcasting Project
Working in the Script Commands panel
Concepts
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