About a year ago, YouTube added its feature, which lets users include captions in their videos. The company is now including this feature in the YouTube API, so developers can utilize the functionality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRS8MkLhQmMNow developers are able to create applications, where users can upload and manage caption tracks for their videos. Videos can have multiple caption tracks, and multiple subtitle formats are supported. Formats include:
– RealText (.rt)
– SAMI (.smi)
– Media RSS
“If you already have captions available, we recommend that you upload them in their original format, whatever that may be,” says YouTube. “If you do not have formatted caption data, such as a transcript that does not have timing data, we recommend using SubRip (*.SRT) or SubViewer (*.SUB) for generating formatted captions.”
In addition, YouTube supports a simple format that is compatible with SubRip and SubViewer. In that format, each caption is divided into three segments: Timecodes, Caption Text, and a Blank Line.
Captions are only available for API version 2, and can only be created, retrieved, modified, and deleted by the owner of the video.
More information about the captions feature in the API can be found in this developer’s guide.
