Tips & Tricks - MacCaption (OS X)

Drag and Drop Movie
A movie can be played simply by dragging the movie to the movie screen in MacCaption. 

Drag and Drop a Project File
An entire project (movie with time coded captions) can be easily viewed by dragging the .cca file anywhere on the visible MacCaption screen/interface. 

Time Stamp Key
To choose a key for time-stamping other than the “i” key and the “+” key, which are always available for time stamping, go to the MacCaption Preferences menu. Then choose the function key you want, from F1 to F12, next to Caption Time Code Sync Function Key.

Adjust Reaction Time
To compensate for the human reaction time for time stamping, go to the MacCaption Preferences menu. Then click on User Time Stamp Frame Adjustment. Typically, the reaction time is about 10 to 15 frames. You may choose a number between 10 and 15 and see how the captions are synched to audio when you do AutoSync.

Highlight a Block of Captions
To highlight more then one caption, hold the shift key down and then click on just outside the begin caption cell and the end caption cell.  All caption cells in-between will get highlighted. 

Subtitling (Available with MacCaption NLE/Mpeg with Subtitle option software only)
To display subtitles choose Display as Subtitles from the View menu. Subtitle attributes can be changed in the Subtitle pull down menu. Setting a subtitle attribute affects that attribute for all of the subtitles in the project. 

At the present time subtitles can only be put onto DV QuickTime movies that are the standard 720 x 480 line resolution. 

Exporting to DVD .scc caption files
MacCaption exports close caption description files with the Scenarist format. This file can be used by Apple's DVD Studio Pro to add closed captions to a DVD during the DVD authoring process. 

When using DVD Studio Pro is very important to have the time code present in the DVD MPEG asset match the time code in the exported .scc file. When generating an MPEG file from Apple's Final Cut Pro the time code that will appear in the MPEG asset will be the corresponding time code on the timeline in Final Cut Pro. 

Adding Captions to MPEG Video 
MacCaption will put close captions directly into MPEG video. The MPEG video must be an unmultiplexed video asset such as a file that ends in “.m2v” or ends in .vob. MacCaption copies the MPEG video not containing closed captions and creates a new MPEG video that contains close captions. This resulting MPEG video can then be used directly by DVD authoring systems to create a closed captioned DVD.

Time Alignment / Automatic Match Text with Audio 
MacCaption software can now automatically break and accurately time closed captions at the click of button. There is a service fee for this function. This automates the labor-intensive job of having a captioner listen to the audio, manually break the text into captions, and then synchronize the captions with the dialogue.

With CaptionSync automated captioning software from Automatic Sync Technologies, the captioner connects to the internet and uploads the script and the corresponding audio file to a file server. Within minutes, a time stamped script file will be displayed on the computer.

This service starts at $65 per one hour file. You can buy this service by contacting Automatic Sync Technologies directly at 510-582-3437 or kevin@automaticsync.com. For more info please check www.automaticsync.com

To automatically synchronize caption dialog with the audio portion of a video choose Auto Match Text with Audio from the MacCaption Special Pull Down menu. You will be presented with a window that controls the uploading of your caption dialog and an audio file of that dialog to a remote host for processing. This window also controls the downloading the synchronized text file. 

To upload files for automatic synchronization you must prepare a dialog file and an audio MP3 file. The text file should be a plain text file that ends with the “.txt” suffix. A Macintosh OS X program like TextEdit will produce this type of file. The text file should consist of the entire spoken dialog in the video that is being synchronized. 

The audio file needs to be an MP3 audio file that is 16 bit 44.1 KHz and 32 Kbps. To create this type of file you can export the audio portion of your movie with the Professional version of QuickTime Player as a ”.wav” file and then use a conversion software application such as Amadeus II from http://www.hairersoft.com to convert the “.wav” file into an MP3 file. 
Setting up MacCaption for the "Automatic Match Text with Caption" function is a three step process; first generate and send a public network encryption key to Automatic Sync Technologies (AST); second, AST adds your public key to their computer system; third, use a program called "sftp" to finalize the auto login process. 

Step 1. Generate and send a public network key to AST1. On MacOS X navigate to /Your_main_disk/Applications/Utilities folder.
2. Start the application called Terminal.
3. Type: cd ~/.ssh
4. Type: ssh-keygen -t dsa
5. For each question you are asked type a carriage return. 3 carriage returns are required.
6. Type: cat id_dsa.pub
7. Select all the text starting with ssh-dss, copy and paste it into an email message.
8. Send the email to brent@automaticsync.com with the subject "Please set up my CPC network account".
 
Step 2. Wait for an email reply from AST saying they have set up your network login. 

Step 3. Finalize your network auto login process.1. On MacOS X navigate to /Your_main_disk/Applications/Utilities folder.
2. Start the application called Terminal.
3. Type: sftp cpc_user@67.121.70.225
4. When you get the "are you sure you want to continue,” message type "yes"
5. You should get the prompt saying "sftp>"
6. Type: exit
7. Quit the Terminal application.
 
Communication with the AST Remote Host computer will be enabled. 
Selecting the Remote Tab in the Preferences dialog and selecting Trace Remote Communication will enable additional remote host communication information. You should also set the Remote Account field in the Remote Tab to be your remote account name. If you do not set this field the MacCaption software will set it. There can be no spaces in the Remote Account name. 

In the Auto Match window click on New button and double click the Text File area and the Audio File area for the New Job and select your previously prepared text and audio file. Then choose upload to send these files to the remote computer for synchronization. After a few minutes press the Refresh button to see whether your synchronized file is ready for downloading. When it is ready, use the Download button to retrieve the “.asc” output file. The downloaded synchronized “.asc” output file can be imported directly into MacCaption.