Overview

Kaltura supports captions - which display in the media player as it plays - as well as transcripts, which are automatically generated based on the caption file. Anyone who can see the transcript within a Kaltura media player should be able to download it. 

This tutorial applies to all UCSD Kaltura users: students, instructors, and staff with active directory credentials. Transcripts can be downloaded in Canvas and in MediaSpace.

Critical Concepts

What's the Difference between Captions and Transcripts?

Sometimes the terms "captions" and "transcripts" are used interchangeably, but there are meaningful differences, particularly within the context of media management. While both contain a textual representation of words spoken during a video, here's where they diverge:

• Caption files contain timecodes that indicate the start and endpoints of when a piece of text should be onscreen while the video is playing. They can have a variety of file extensions, such as .srt or .vtt.
• Transcripts contain no timecodes at all, and always have a .txt file extension. It's just a big block of text.

Kaltura generates its transcripts based on the captions. So if you edit the captions, the changes will be reflected in the transcript. The transcript can be found within most Kaltura media players. The nice thing about Kaltura's transcript widget is that it will highlight the text that's currently being spoken, and you can click on parts of it to jump to that part in the video. 

Things to Keep in Mind

• You have to play the video before the transcript will be visible.
• For the purposes of this documentation, we're assuming that you're looking at a Kaltura media player with the transcript widget visible. You can see and download the transcript as long as you're using a player that has the transcript enabled (and most do). 
  
• Kaltura's transcripts have a lot of line breaks. It appears as though Kaltura formats the transcript based on its appearance in the in-player widget. That means it has a lot of line breaks. Most transcripts (as noted above) just contain a large block of text. So if you want to use the transcript as the basis of a text-based document, you may have to get clever to remove those line breaks.
• Want to edit the transcript? You can only edit captions or transcripts  for a video if you're the entry's owner or a co-editor (see our documentation on Kaltura collaborators if needed). That is, you can't just be a viewer (though you can still download the transcript). There are currently 3 ways you can edit the words associated with a Kaltura media entry:
  • You can edit the captions using Kaltura's web-based closed caption editor
  • You can download the captions, edit them on your computer, and upload them
  • You can download the transcript, edit it on your computer, and upload it

Steps to Take

1. Click the play button to start the video. You have to do this so that the other controls become visible in the player. You can pause it immediately if you wish.
2. If the transcript isn't visible, click the transcript icon.
3. At the top of the transcript widget, click the kebab (three dots) and select Download current transcript. 

The .txt file will download to your computer.