p/caption-this
Add closed-captions to videos for Instagram stories
Jon Brennecke
Caption This — Add closed-captions to videos for Instagram stories
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Instagram stories now has 500M daily active users. But many viewers skip stories if they can’t turn up their phone’s volume 🔊Caption This solves this problem by creating videos with live closed-captions. Just record a video or load it from your camera roll, and Caption This will add captions that are perfectly synced to your speech. 🎉

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Lachlan Kirkwood
Looks like a great way to streamline the content creation process! Would be curious to know how accurate the transcription is? Is it built on an off-the-shelf NLC model?
Jon Brennecke
@lachlankirkwood the transcript quality is great! It uses the built-in speech recognition system on iOS so the results are the same as what you get from Siri or dictation from the keyboard. Also, if there are errors in the transcription you have a chance to edit them before saving your captions.
Krishna De
Nice to see this here @jonbrennecke I see you from your notes that you added landscape - portrait would be good too with the increase in vertical video. I would love to see an Android version and also the option to let people test the app before they invest so that they can see how it works. It seems that it auto captions videos that you can edit - is that correct? What about video where there is no audio, can you also add a voiceover or manually add captions to pre-recorded content? Exporting the SRT file of captions would be helpful too for accompanying the post. I have added you to my curations - looking forward to seeing how you further develop the app.
Jon Brennecke
@krishnade Thanks Krishna! Wow these are all great ideas. Thanks for the feedback! Portrait and landscape are both supported right now. In another update coming soon I'll be adding support for cropping to other ratios (like 5x4, 4x3 and square). It doesn't currently support videos with no audio. However I've had a few people request that feature, so I will definitely be looking into adding that!
Krishna De
@jonbrennecke You are very welcome. BTW if you are looking for beta testers please do count me in as I'd love to take a look at the app and provide input as I teach mobile marketing and content creation to media, marketing and comms professionals and would like to evaluate it as a resource to be included in my workshop materials.
braxton
Nice work, Jon! I love how this can help watchers experience stores better. This is a great idea & I hope it is used in more scenarios than just this.
Jon Brennecke
@3raxton Thanks for the support! I launched this app with Instagram in mind, but I've already seen several people using it on LinkedIn, and a few on twitter. 🤷‍♂️From their feedback, I added support for landscape videos. There's a couple other features in the works that will make Caption This an even better tool for people on all platforms!
Scott Wyden Kivowitz
I was about to buy it and review it on my YouTube channel. But the reviews are already discouraging in the App Store. Hopefully you have plans to improve the app. When that happens I’d be happy to buy it and review it.
Jon Brennecke
@scottwyden hey Scott! There were a few bugs in one of the first releases of the app, but those have since been fixed. Send me a DM and I'd be happy to get you a promo code to try the app out for free.
Jon Brennecke
Hi Product Hunt! ✌️ I’m Jon, the creator of Caption This. Caption This is a iOS app I built while on vacation over Christmas. Caption This helps Instagram influencers boost engagement with their stories by adding closed captions to their videos. Often times, viewers skip stories if they can’t turn up their phone’s volume — if they’re in a public space or don’t have their headphones. Caption This is the solution to this problem. 🔥🔥🔥 🛠 Key Features: - Load videos from your camera roll, or shoot videos in the app - Custom styles for text: choose from a list of great fonts, and pick a custom background color (or no color at all) - Support for portrait & landscape videos Caption This is built with React Native and it's 100% open source (see the Github link in the social links section)
Valerii Kuznietsov
@jonbrennecke if ReactNative, why no Android version?
Jon Brennecke
@_dwite_ great question! It is React Native, but it's only about 2/3 Javascript. The rest is native swift and Objective C. Most of that code is for the captions and transcriptions, which depends on the native iOS speech recognition API. Android has a similar speech API, but I haven't had made a react native bridge for it yet. That's definitely in the long-term plan though!
Kelly Savoca
@jonbrennecke Yes I loved the idea of using this tool although I agree with some who mentioned above about small words being hard to tap. It's been to the point where I have to decide to leave it as an error which is frustrating. Also, I wish there was a way to store the edited videos after download. I say this because after spending 45 mins editing the video(which can sometimes be daunting on a small screen), I couldn't see the background till I downloaded it (for some reason?) and did not love the look. So I was left to decide if I use something I did not love or spend another 45 mins fixing the issue. At that point I will probably post it without the captions. I don't think there is an option for this yet so just want to send along some feedback. If there is please let me know!
Jon Brennecke
@kelly_savoca Thanks for the detailed feedback! I'll see what I can do about that... I have a couple improvements in the works, specifically for the text editing screen (which I agree is really difficult to use). A couple people have mentioned the missing background issue. I'll look into fixing that ASAP! Do you mind if I ask what model of iPhone you're using?
Brett Elizabeth Berry

Love it! It really increases engagement, especially for Instagram stories!

Pros:

Easy to use! Record videos in the app or upload. It auto-adds captions that you can easily edit/style. Also supports landscape vids!

Cons:

It’s only on iOS right now, needs an android version :)

Jon Brennecke
Thanks for the review! An Android version will hopefully be coming soon! The app is built with React Native so a cross-platform app is definitely something I have in mid.
Lesley Ryder
I wish there was more built-in support for this app. I’m trying to caption some videos from my camera roll, and every time the screen says “100%, finishing up”, it kicks me back to the camera roll, with no captioned video. How do I fix this?
Jen from MBAchic.com
I've been using Caption This for about six weeks now, and I'm really pleased with it. We use the app to transcribe IG stories as part of our #MBAchicTakeover series on Instagram (we feature current MBA students / MBA grads who take us around for a day in the life, to conferences or job treks, and other events that help humanize the business school experience). After reading some crazy stat that an overwhelming majority of users view IG stories and videos on silent, we had to do something to make sure our contributors weren't wasting their time creating content for us. From the functionality, to creator @jonbrennecke being super responsive in answering questions about the app, I really cannot complain. I'm going to list out pros and cons, to make it easier to read: Pros: - ability to load pre-recorded videos - ability to edit the automatically generated captions word-by-word (tap the word you want to edit/replace while reviewing) - caption font can be customized, which is important for branding content Cons: - only iOS, not on Android yet - sometimes smaller words that are automatically generated ("I" or "a") are hard to tap your finger on to activate edit mode, so some of our clips wind up with errant single letters here and there - not a major dealbreaker but understand it's being addressed - cannot always detect low sound / narration (we had to manually caption some videos where the speaker was further from the mic, but that's more of a sound issue than an app issue) Thanks again, Jon, let me know if we can review any future releases or if you need anything from us. Very happy with it so far!
Vadim Zakharov

I make lots of edu videos, so caps are very useful.

Pros:

Very good app, would like to have a bigger font.

Cons:

When I save the video with captions, the background goes missing, so there's no background support for the caps. It just disappears.

Kristina Todorova
Very disappointed with this app. It takes a long time to upload a 5 min video and even longer to generate subtitles. I downloaded the app an hour and a half ago and still waiting for the subtitles to be generated - the screen has been showing “almost ready” for the past 45 minutes (and this is a 5 min video). Do not waste your money on this app.
Rodrigo Nunes
The app works with other languages other than English? How is the proccess of adding the caption? =)
Jon Brennecke
@fnnrodrigo currently it only works with English, although I will be rolling out support for other languages in the next update!
Ivan Bilak
Great idea! I suppose it's so useful for Instagram bloggers as me 😉
Jon Brennecke
@ivan_bilak1 Thanks for your support! Definitely trying to make this tool as useful as possible for people just like you.
Tomer Dicturel
Great idea - thats for making will use a lot :-)
Igor Gurman
GURme