Add captions to every video you post. They let deaf and hard of hearing viewers follow what is said, and they help anyone watching without sound. On YouTube you can upload a caption file, sync a transcript, type captions as you watch, or use YouTube’s automatic captions. Whichever you choose, check the text before you publish. Automatic captions often get names, hymn titles and theological terms wrong.
Why captions matter
RNID reports that 1 in 3 people in the UK, over 18 million, are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus. Captions make your sermon clips and worship videos easier for many of them to follow.
The Methodist Church’s recording consent and accessibility guide calls captions the single most important accessibility feature for streamed worship. It says they also help people watching somewhere noisy, people whose first language is not English, and people who take in written information more easily than speech.
The same guide covers consent for recorded worship, so read that part too if you are planning captions for your church’s videos.
Closed captions and burned-in captions
There are two ways captions can appear.
Closed captions sit in a separate track. On YouTube, viewers can turn them on or off, and you can edit them after the video is published.
Burned-in captions, sometimes called open captions, are part of the picture. Everyone sees them, and they can’t be switched off or edited without exporting the video again.
As a rule of thumb:
- use closed captions for full services, sermons, talks and long YouTube videos
- use burned-in captions for short vertical clips on Reels, Shorts and TikTok, where the text is part of the design
For burned-in captions, keep the text away from the edges of the frame, where the apps place their buttons and descriptions. Use short lines and high contrast.
The ways to add captions on YouTube
YouTube’s help page on subtitles and captions lists four options in YouTube Studio, under Subtitles.
Upload a file
Upload a caption file that holds the words and the times each line should appear. This suits you if your editor or a captioning service has already made the file.
Auto-sync
Type or paste the words, or upload a transcript, and YouTube sets the timings. The transcript must be in the same language that is spoken in the video. YouTube doesn’t recommend transcripts for videos over an hour long or with poor audio, so this option may not suit a full service.
Type manually
Play the video and type the captions as you go. YouTube suggests adding sounds such as [applause] so viewers know what is happening.
Automatic captions
YouTube uses speech recognition to create captions and publishes them on the video when they are ready. YouTube’s help page lists this option as Auto-translate. Automatic captions are in the video’s default language only.
YouTube’s page on automatic captioning says quality can vary with accents, dialects and background noise. It tells creators to always review automatic captions and edit any parts that are wrong.
For live streams, the same page says automatic captions are available in English only and have to be turned on for each stream. They work only on normal latency streams, and YouTube is still rolling them out to channels with more than 1,000 subscribers. Once the stream ends, YouTube creates new captions for the recording, which may differ from the live ones.
What to check in automatic captions
The Methodist Church guide rates YouTube’s automatic captions as medium quality, at 70 to 85% accurate. It recommends correcting them after the service, before the recording is shared. Check these first:
- Names: the preacher, guest speakers, worship leaders and your church’s name
- Scripture references: book names, chapters and verses
- Song titles and lyrics: especially older hymn wording
- Place names: local areas, mission partners and countries
- Theological terms: the Methodist guide says automatic captions often get these wrong, along with hymn titles and proper names
Better sound gives better captions. The Methodist guide suggests a good microphone close to the speaker, a moderate pace and avoiding people talking over each other.
Lyric captions for music videos
For a music video, a caption track with the lyrics helps viewers follow the words, including people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Add it as a closed caption track, so it doesn’t clash with any titles or lyrics already in the picture. Check the spelling of names and any lines in other languages.
Our post on YouTube upload settings for music videos covers the other settings worth getting right at upload.
British Sign Language
Captions don’t replace BSL for everyone. The Methodist guide says around 87,000 people in the UK use BSL as their first or preferred language. If your church has BSL users, the guide covers how to include an interpreter in a stream.
Captions in our reels packs
Both reels packs on our content creation page include captions or subtitles. The Starter pack is £150 for 5 vertical promo reels and the Professional tier is £350 for 10. Each reel is up to 60 seconds, edited and exported for the platform in vertical 9:16.
If you’re cutting clips yourself, our guide to turning a sermon into clips goes through each step. For services and conferences, our live streaming page lists the streaming packages. To ask about captions on a project, contact us.
