About

Order Machine-generated, Professional, or Auto-select service type captions for VOD content using REACH and Content Lab.

Captions are provided in the same language as the media. If you need translated captions or subtitles in another language, see Ordering Translations.

Caption service types

You can choose from the following caption services:

Machine (ASR)

Best for high-volume or time-sensitive content where speed and cost are the priority and captions can be reviewed or edited after delivery.

This AI-based service provides quick, searchable video transcripts with an average 85% accuracy and a turnaround time of up to two hours.

Users can edit the transcript and resubmit for alignment. The engine improves over time, and custom vocabularies can be added for industry-specific terms.

Top use cases for machine captioning:

• Immediate transcripts needed within minutes of upload (for example, call centers)
• Consistent speakers, such as university faculty
• Language with specialized terms, idioms, or domain-specific vocabulary
• Clear speaker audio without background noise

Professional

Best when every file must meet the highest accuracy standard - for example, legal, regulatory, broadcast, or public-facing content where errors are not acceptable.

This is a service that leverages professional human transcribers to provide full-service captioning with 99% accuracy. Additionally, the captions will be fully compliant with closed captioning standards and accessibility requirements, as well as media publishing expectations.

Turnaround time ranges from 3 hours to 48 hours, depending on your selected service level. It's recommended to use this service for your public-facing, external videos, including marketing, learning, and training.

Top use cases for professional captioning:

• Accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Support for reading and literacy challenges
• Expanding reach to multilingual viewers
• Interactive transcript experience
• Closed captions for TV and media compliance

Auto-select

Best for organizations with accessibility or compliance requirements across a large content library, where consistent quality is required but the cost of professional review on every file isn't justified.

This service uses machine-generated captions with automated quality assessment. Captions are generated using automatic speech recognition (ASR) and then evaluated against the vendor's quality threshold. If the machine output meets the required standard, captions are delivered as generated. If it does not, the file is automatically routed to a professional transcriber for review and correction.

The assessment and routing happen entirely behind the scenes - no workflow selection or quality configuration is required from the customer. The target quality standard remains consistent across all files; what varies is how that quality is achieved, and consequently the turnaround time and price.

Auto-select captioning is designed to deliver required accuracy while avoiding the cost of professional review when it isn't needed. It is particularly well-suited for organizations processing high volumes of content to meet accessibility requirements.

Top use cases for auto-select captioning:

• High-volume content where consistent quality is required but professional review of every file is cost-prohibitive
• Organizations with accessibility compliance obligations across a large content library
• Videos with mostly clear audio that are likely to meet quality thresholds without human intervention
• Content containing specialized terms or background noise where machine output may require professional correction
• Internal, educational, or training content where quality assurance is needed at scale

Before you start

• Video must be in "Ready" status (transcoded)
• Your account must have Content Lab enabled
• Your account must have an active REACH profile enabled with relevant catalog item(s)

Access the caption ordering screen 

You can order captions for VOD content from either the Entries page or the entry details page.

From the Entries page

1. Log into your Rich Media CMS.
The Entries page displays by default.
2. Locate the desired entry, click the three dots to the right and select Captions & Translations.

From the entry details page

1. Click on the desired entry.



2. The entry details page opens.

3. In the left panel, click the Captions tab.



4. The Captions tab opens.

5. Click Order captions & translations at the top of the page.

The Captions orders window opens.

Order captions

1. Click + Order captions and select Closed captions.

The Order captions screen displays. 

For the full instructions, see Order VOD captions with Content Lab.