Vimeo is hot on YouTube’s heels as far as sharing videos and streaming is concerned. Hands down, it is one of the best platforms if you love your videos ad-free. It also features Vimeo subtitles and captions like other video streaming platforms to streamline your viewership.
In particular, Vimeo serves as a platform for wannabe film creators and artists looking to build their careers. Most of its 14 million subscribers use it for marketing their film-creation talents.
Vimeo Subtitles & Captions
If you’ve long considered captions and subtitles the same thing, then this the chance to draw a thin line between them.
Subtitles
Subtitles translate conversations into a foreign language (however, this isn’t a cast-iron rule). They are created to help you access a movie acted in a foreign language in your dialect. Other times, the subtitles are similar to the footage language.
Subtitles are usually displayed as written texts at your screen’s bottom.
Captions
Captions are a direct transcription of multimedia content in the same dialect as in the movie.
Captioning’s primary role is to improve a video’s accessibility even for the deaf and hearing-impaired. They also help you stream in surroundings that require utter silence or private-watching.
Plus, they carry some crucial info not found in subtitles. For instance, they pay attention to video scene noises, musical elements, the speaker(s), and other sound-related cues.
You can divide captions into Closed Captions and Open Captions. While you can choose to turn on/off Closed Captions, Open Captions are embedded into the video (and can’t be switched off).
In Vimeo, you can activate or switch off the closed captions with the CC button.
NB: These are the most common file extensions for Vimeo subtitles and captions; SRT, WebVTT, SAMI, SCC, and DFXP/TTML.
Top Reasons to Use Vimeo Subtitles & Captions When Streaming
Subtitles translate conversations into a foreign language (however, this isn’t a rule of thumb). They are created to help you access a movie acted in a foreign language in your dialect.
Other times, the subtitles are similar to the video language. Subtitles are displayed as written texts at your screen’s bottom.
7 Benefits of Captions & Subtitles
Besides translating and transcribing the audio in your videos to readable text, these resources are useful in many other ways, including;
1. Boost the viewing experience;
Watching Vimeo videos with subtitles ensures a complete viewing experience because you catch all the clip’s conversations. Plus, you have, in text, anything you miss in audio.
Nothing is as off-putting as trying to comprehend a slurred speaker’s words or running into important content captured in a foreign language.
Luckily, you can fix most of these problems by searching, downloading, and adding subtitles (if the video maker has posted its subtitle file online).
2. Ease the Video Search Process
Subtitles and captions simplify your video search. Through a back-end process known as search engine optimization, video makers embed their clips along with a transcript to make them more visible in search engines like Google.
On the users’ end, SEO eases video search because the search engine can almost instantly tell what you’re after as soon as you type relevant keywords.
3. Increases your comprehension of video content
Accents, background noises, vocabulary, language barriers, hearing impairment, and so on are all obstacles to comprehending video content.
Having all dialogues in text form play along your videos increases comprehension. For instance, new vocabulary is challenging to the ear, but captions/subtitles can act as a reference source. That way, you can even pause the video and Google new vocabulary instead of brushing it off.
4. Watch in all environments
Vimeo subtitles and captions also enable you to watch in nearly all environments, whether noisy or requiring total silence.
Depending on your surroundings, you can turn up your volume and activate closed-captions/subtitles or mute your phone/laptop and read the texts to enjoy the conversations.
5. They help you gather factual data from videos.
Closed captions are already a transcription of the video lectures or conversations. A bid to extract data from lecture or survey videos and audio can be met by several challenges. But you almost overcome all if you have subtitles or captions running along with the clip.
Even the best researchers transcribe audio/video data into the text to simplify qualitative analysis.
6. Allows you to watch with a bilingual audience
Subtitles translate dialogues to a different language. They are specifically built to help you access video conversations in different dialects. To watch in a bilingual audience, you can play the clip in the default language and add subtitles for the foreign dialect. That way, one group can enjoy the audio while the next reads subtitles to comprehend the video.
7. Enjoy Videos Despite Bad Audio Quality
Videos recorded in noisy backgrounds have bad audio quality. Subtitles and captions give users access to the clip’s dialogues.
Adding Vimeo Subtitles in Videos without Captions?
Most video makers add subtitles and captions to their videos, but you’ll run into clips that do not have subtitles.
This section explains how to add captions or subtitles that you can turn/off on Vimeo. But you can also embed subtitles into your own Vimeo videos.
For this process, you must source the subtitles from elsewhere or generate them with an online tool, as we shall explain.
Downsub lets you Download Vimeo Subtitles in an instant and at no charge at all. Follow these steps to download captions on the website.
- Copy the link (URL) to your Vimeo video to clipboard and then,
- Visit Downsub’s website
- Paste the link into the conspicuous box at the top of the website
- Hit the Download icon; it will provide a drop-down list of the
- Button to generate subtitles.
- Pick your preferred subtitle format, i.e., SRT, WebVTT, etc., and language, and then hit Download.
- Enjoy you subtitles
If this option doesn’t work, contact the video maker and request them to add subtitles or embed open/close captions.
Adding captions or Subtitles to Your own Video Clip
Subtitles translate conversations into a foreign dialect, but this isn’t a rule of thumb. They are created to help you access a movie acted in a foreign language in your dialect. Other times, the subtitles are similar to the video language. Subtitles appear as written texts at your screen’s bottom.
If you make Vimeo video clips, then it’s essential to add subtitles or closed captions (CC) to your video, depending on your needs.
Your viewers deserve nothing but the best experience. Follow these tips to add your subtitles;
- go to your Video Settings page,
- Navigate to Distribution
- Locate the Subtitles Section
- To add the file, click the + icon
- Fill the language section and specify whether it’s a subtitle or CC
- Tap Choose File and add the subtitle. Remember, Vimeo only accepts SRT, WebVTT, SAMI, SCC, or DFXP/TTML extensions.
- After the file is uploaded, you can turn it on/off to control it.
You can also remove, change or edit the subtitle file by hitting the three dots near the file name and choose from the drop-menu.
SRT, WebVTT, SAMI, SCC, and DFXP/TTML are the most common file extensions for Vimeo subtitling and captioning. However, Vimeo advises users to upload WebVTT files.
Fixing Vimeo Subtitles & Caption Problems During Uploads
Users often plunge into problems uploading when uploading subtitle files to videos. If you face issues, check whether you have added a Vimeo-compatible file.
SRT, WebVTT, SAMI, SCC, and DFXP/TTML are the most common file extensions for Vimeo captions and subtitles. However, the platform advises users to upload WebVTT files.
Below are the two errors you may plunge into if you upload the wrong file or if your subtitle file contains some formatting errors like wrong syntax or HTML coding.
- Unexpected Text Track Upload Type
In case you plunge into this problem, confirm to ensure that Vimeo accepts the file you’re trying to add. SRT, WebVTT, SAMI, SCC, and DFXP/TTML are the most common file extensions for Vimeo subtitles and captions. However, the platform advises users to upload WebVTT files.
Consider converting it to any of the above formats and try again.
- Invalid Caption File
This error happens even with the right file formats, and your best way out is to convert to WebVTT files.
What is Vimeo?
Vimeo is a software-as-service streaming platform that, unfortunately, isn’t free of charge. Users can choose between three different plans, namely;
- Basic
Vimeo’s basic plan gives you access to only 500 Megabytes (MB) per week. Still, you can upgrade to a better option; however, those who opt to try the site before committing to a plan make the most of their subscriptions.
- Vimeo Plus
A Vimeo plus subscription is capped at $10/month and offers you up to 5Gigabytes (GB) of storage per week.
- Vimeo Pro
For more severe video uploads, go for Vimeo Pro. This subscription costs $200/year, but this gives a generous 50GB per week with no bandwidth limits.
It also gives access to state-of-the-art tools and shares performance results to gauge your progress.
Final Words
Subtitles translate conversations into a foreign language, but this isn’t a rule of thumb. They are created to help you access a clip narrated in a foreign language in your dialect. Other times, the subtitles are similar to the video language.
On the other hand, captions help improve a video’s accessibility even for the deaf and hearing-impaired. They also allow you to stream in surroundings that require utter silence or private-watching.
Whether you’re enjoying clips or posting new videos to attract a larger audience on Vimeo, subtitles are a central part of the entire experience. Remember, SRT, WebVTT, SAMI, SCC, and DFXP/TTML is the most common file extensions for Vimeo subtitles and captions. Nevertheless, Vimeo recommends the use of WebVTT files.
Transcribing subtitle files alone can be challenging. But you can always outsource this job to an experienced transcriber at Bunny Studios for accurate and timely results.
