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Tools & Guidelines
MAGpie2 Additional Captioning Topics

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Creating Captions for YouTube Videos

If you are captioning a project for a YouTube video, export either DFXP, SAMI or RealPlayer (RealText) captions and then upload the file to YouTube. Read the instructions for uploading captions to YouTube, bearing in mind that you do not need to change the file's extension to .SRT or .SUB, nor do you need to reformat the timecodes. Simply upload the file as is. Note that the YouTube conversion process may introduce unusual line breaks into the captions, so be sure to test and review the captions carefully before linking to the captioned YouTube video.

Creating Segmented Captions

MAGpie 2.0 allows you to segment captions for a karaoke-style effect. You may segment captions by sentence, line, word or, for custom effects, manually.

  1. Place the cursor on the first caption you wish to segment. From the Captions menu, choose a segmentation method.
  • Segment manually
  • Segment by sentence
  • Segment by line
  • Segment by word
  1. MAGpie will open a new window in the editor at the bottom of the screen showing the segmented caption.
  2. Apply stylistic changes to each segment as appropriate. This can be accomplished in two ways:
  • Modify the Segment Annotation Style setting in the Properties dialog to change the segment foreground, background, or to underline the segment.
  • Manually change the segment style. For example, to add color to a segment's text (or foreground), highlight that segment and choose a text color from the text-color drop-down list near the top of the editor. To change the segment's background color, highlight the text and choose a color from the background-color drop-down list.
  1. Place the cursor on caption or segment that needs to be timed. Play the media and time each segment by pressing the F9 key at the appropriate intervals. The cursor will move to the lower portion of the caption grid when it reaches a caption with segments. Be aware that the smaller the caption segments are, the more rapidly the user will need to press F9 to time the segments. After you have timed the segment, MAGpie will automatically return the cursor to the main editing window. If you have segmented more than one consecutive caption, MAGpie will continue to move the cursor from caption segment to caption segment with each successive press of F9, and then return the cursor to the main window when the segments have all been timed.
segmented caption region of caption table


The image above shows that not all formatting that can be applied to segments will appear in the media player. In the image, the QuickTime player is being used and the text background format is not displayed. In the image below, the media player used in the project was changed to GRiNS, demonstrating the difference in the output that RealPlayer would display.


segmented captions in GRiNS

  1. If the segmented captions are not needed they can be removed by selecting caption cells with segments and selecting Discard Segments from the Captions menu.

Captioning Long Movies

When captioning movies that are long (20 minutes or more), users may want to uncheck Export changes on playback in the Playback menu. This option prevents MAGpie from rewriting the MAGpie project file each time the movie is started. Rewriting the project file allows changes made to the caption grid to be viewed in the media player. Selecting Export changes now from the Playback menu forces MAGpie to rewrite the project file.


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