Subtitle Edit
The tip from two nights ago, explained how to add in captions using Windows Live Movie Maker. If you've already got a full transcript of a deposition video, or other recording to be played in court, you don't need to do this or invest in InData's Time Coder in order to synch the text file as closed captioning. Download Subtitle Edit from a Danish developer on his site www.nikse.dk . The application is completely free and comes with an array of options for synching up text files with video and audio recordings. Start by saving a transcript (assuming it does not already have time codes) in a plain text file. Remove any extraneous text (like blank lines or captions indicating who is speaking). Load this file by going to File . . . Import plain text. Then select the video by going to the Video menu and clicking Open Video File. Subtitle Edit includes the option to automatically generate time codes. See Fig. 1 below. You should be prompted for this option after opening the text file. This works better than you might guess, but it will likely not turn out perfectly. Instead you'll need to enter the time codes manually. See Fig. 2 showing the 'List View' tab. When you begin the 'Start time' and 'End time' values should be set to zero, as should the duration of each caption. You can adjust these as the video plays, simply by pressing F9 as the spoken words for each caption begins, and then F10 when they end.
Subtitle Edit won't actually export a video file with the CC text. There are several ways to get such a video. See the steps on the N!ske site here. If you're working with a video file in the .mp4 format, you can use, Handbrake, available here. In Subtitle Edit, go to File . . .Save as . . . and create a SubRip .srt file. In Handbrake you select the video file by choosing Source from the top tool bar. It should appear in the Destination section. Click on the Subtitles tab and choose 'Import SRT', and be sure to check the option for 'Burn in'. Click 'Add' in the Presets section and set it so there's no maximum picture size. Then just press Start on the top toolbar.