If you already know how to transcribe, you may want to consider captioning as your next step. You can find captioning jobs on the Speechpad worker website that are very similar to transcription jobs you might already be doing. As you gain experience, you can choose more advanced jobs that utilize our sophisticated captioning console. You’ll find information below to help you decide if captioning is a good fit for you.
Speechpad breaks the captioning into a two-part process. First, the video is transcribed into a flat text file, just like any other transcription. We call these caption jobs. After a video is transcribed, an automated process divides the text into caption groups and adds a start time and end time for each group. Once that is done, a caption review job is created, where a worker will make sure that the dialog and timing is accurate, and the caption grouping conforms to certain rules.
You should have all the skills required of a Transcriber, and some experience at transcribing for Speechpad. From there, it’s easy to take the first step into captioning. You’ll need to get the Web Video Captioning qualification. The instructions will point you to a style guide that gives you all the details for how to transcribe these types of videos. You’ll then take a test to gain the qualification. Once you have it, you can filter for “Standard Captions” jobs on the Job Board. Although they are called caption jobs, what you’ll be doing is essentially advanced transcription.
Once you’ve gained enough experience, you might be invited to receive the Web Captioning Reviewer qualification. That will allow you to do higher paying caption review jobs. Before you start those jobs, you’ll be given access to training material that teaches you how to use the captioning console.
You might also want to try your hand (or ear) at Premium Caption jobs. These are a more advanced type of captioning job with additional requirements specific to SDH Captions. For example, you’ll need to distinguish between onscreen and offscreen dialogue, denote sound effects, intonation, etc. To do these jobs, you’ll need to get the SDH Captioning Qualification. After you’ve mastered that, you might then be invited to receive the SDH Captioning Reviewer Qualification, which allows you to do Premium Captions review jobs. Like Standard Captions review jobs, Premium Captions review jobs also require you to learn how to use the captioning console.
You only need a computer, internet connection, and headphones. If you are using a Windows-based computer, we suggest getting a foot pedal. We recommend the Infiniti Foot Control – IN-USB-2. The Infiniti Foot Control – IN-USB-1 and the Start-Stop® UNIVERSAL Transcription System will both work as well. Once you have the foot pedal, you can download Speechpad’s Foot Control software to allow you to use the foot pedal with our transcription and captioning consoles.
While all of the captioning jobs can be completed inside of our transcription or captioning consoles, some of the more experienced workers may prefer to use their own transcription applications or subtitle editors. Express Scribe is a popular application for transcription. For captioning review jobs, there are several free and commercial subtitle editors, such as SubtitleEdit (Windows), FinalSub (Mac OS), Subtitle Workshop (Cross Platform), and Jubler (Cross Platform).
Please keep in mind your use of any tools must comply with Speechpad’s Worker Confidentiality Agreement. For example, you are not allowed to use any online tools other than our worker website. None of the tools you use should require or even allow media or text to be uploaded to a third party website. Any local copies of customer media and/or your work product must be completely erased from your computer after you submit the work.