Optimized Video

With the recent signing of the 21st Century Video Accessibility Act, providing web closed captions to your users is more important than ever before.  In addition, the presence of closed captions dramatically increases user and engagement and streams per session.  RAMP’s turnkey Web Closed Captions make it simple to provide this important feature on your site.

The Challenge & Opportunity

In 2012 broadcasters will need to comply with the 21^st Century Video Accessibility Act, but this requirement introduces new workflows that most broadcasters don’t have.  Traditional broadcast closed captioning is typically lost or broken by the digitization and clipping process, and responsibilities for broadcast and web use usually fall onto different organizations or departments within media companies.  In addition, video captions drive increased user engagement.  A recent RAMP study showed that captioning and other interactive vide elements such as search within the transcript increased user engagement by as much as 70%.

The Solution

RAMP has deployed the first end-to-end solution for deploying comprehensive web closed captioning, and offers three approaches that can be used in combination based on the customer needs:

1)   Broadcast Capture and Alignment:  Broadcast capture and alignment captures a designated live broadcast channel and its caption file 24/7.  Customers then upload whatever derivative clips have been created into RAMP’s MediaCloud where the clips are matched to the correct segment of the broadcast and associated caption segment.  The caption and related metadata is then posted back to the customer for inclusion with the clip or retrieved via RAMP API’s.

2)   Automated Caption Alignment:  With automated caption alignment, the customer posts an existing caption file into RAMP’s MediaCloud as well as any related or derivative clips, where RAMP matches the clips to the caption files and posts back to the customer, or retrieved via RAMP API’s.

3)   Human Transcription:  With human transcription (“HTX”), RAMP creates a timecoded transcript from scratch and sends the resulting file back to the customer for inclusion with the video files.

Tools and API’s

RAMP Closed Captions can be completely managed via our point and click console, or via our Web Services API’s. Within the console, you can configure entire content feeds to be transcribed, or designate single clips for transcription on-demand. Existing scripts or transcripts can be cut and paste into the console and then automatically word-level timecoded via MediaCloud audio text alignment (“ATA”). Completed transcripts can be edited at the word level. Individual closed caption files can also be downloaded directly from the console. Many of these features can also be controlled and accessed via RAMP Web Services.

Multi-Format Input and Output

MediaCloud supports multiple content inputs and formats including feeds, uploads, FTP, and API. Content can also be easily extracted from popular video content management systems such as Brightcove. Caption file outputs can be delivered in any of the most common formats including DFXP, SubRip, SMIL and more.

Pricing & Billing

RAMP Web Closed Captioning is delivered as a monthly subscription services based on the number of channels to be captured and/or the volume of video content to be processed.

Integration with RAMP Solution Suite

RAMP closed captioning is easily integrated and compatible with RAMP’s solution suite including MetaPlayer, our “lean-forward” player framework supporting Brightcove, thePlatform, and other popular OVP’s, as well as our Video SEO, Video Search, and Video Tagging applications.

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