Over the last few weeks, I've been taking a look at how to caption video, and I have to admit, the process is still a bit daunting. Creating a transcript is time consuming, but taking that transcript and placing it appropriately into the video? You have to be really committed to keep that up. I didn't find the process to be particularly efficient, and I think that there has to be a better way to add captions. One that doesn't take so much time and isn't so mind-numbingly repetitive.

At first glance, it seemed like a software package would be required, and possibly some specialized hardware as well. Hardware? Yeah, I was surprised too. Not to mention the money. Somehow I don't think that a software package that costs more than your computer and all of its other software applications combined is something that is going to get past too many holders of the purse strings, at non-profits or for profits. I was beginning to see why most closed captioning is done to meet legal requirements and not to meet the needs of the user base.

Then I came across Automatic Sync Technologies. It is an online service that allows you to upload video or audio files and have captions added. If you provide a transcript the process takes as little as 5 minutes for an hour of video. Without a transcript the process takes a couple of days. It works with a variety of formats that work well for web video, including .WMV, .WMA, .MOV, .RM, .RA, .WAV, .MP3, .FLV, .M4A, .M4B, .M4V, or .MP4. They also do

Billing is $85 per media hour for non-profits if a transcript is provided, and is billed in 10 minute increments. So a single 5 to 10 minute podcast would cost about $15 if you provide the transcript. We've come to expect things for free on the web, but this seems to be a reasonable price. I'll take a look at the service and see if I can find other similar services and compare them for price, quality and speed.