EchoVideo

When the ASR system generates VTTs they contain numerous instances where sentences are fragmented across lines. Often the last word of a sentence appears on a separate line with a very short timestamp (often just milliseconds). It’s so short that when published to the caption track, those 1-line captions do not appear on the video. Even if they do appear on the video, having the last word of a sentence appear on it’s own is disorienting to read. This happens in videos of every audio quality, be that high production value or live lecture. I’d like to request a feature that addresses the sentence fragmentation issue in VTT files. Specifically, a post-processing script or built-in functionality that can automatically merge these short, fragmented segments with the preceding segment. If possible this script should ideally be able to define a minimum segment duration. Segments shorter than the threshold (300 milliseconds for example) should be considered candidates for merging. In tandem with that, the script should be able to examine the text content of short segments. If a segment contains a single word with punctuation, it should be merged. When segments are merged, the end timestamp of the combined segment should become the end timestamp of the original last segment. This script could be a toggle in the transcript editor and generate a new “version” of the transcript, or it can be on by default. Here's an example of the end of a sentence breaking onto one line: ------- 00:45:56.979 --> 00:46:00.969 So usually following major extinction events, you have increases of 00:46:00.969 --> 00:46:01.118 diversity. ------ And here’s an example how the script should make this timestamp look: ------ 00:45:56.979 --> 00:46:01.118 So usually following major extinction events, you have increases of diversity. ------

One of our instructors has asked if when a student downloads a lesson transcript if there is a "cleaner" version. By cleaner he means instead of all one paragraph or sometimes split up with Speaker 0 or Speaker 1, if there is an easier to read version. I've attached an example of what a transcript looks like when a student downloads it. We do utilize your service of transcript creation vs uploading our own.

Line item on Clemson RFP

Some of our videos are of Spanish courses where the instructor speaks in both English and Spanish. If I process a video with English as the default language, most of the Spanish is not captured and the timestamps are incorrect, missing huge chunks of information. If I process a video in Spanish, then the same thing happens to the English sections along with the timestamps. Having the ability to specify if a video is both English AND Spanish would be great.

The ability to add audio description tracks to existing videos that can be toggled on or off like captions. Currently we create our own audio description files in house and make a separate copy of the video. It would be nice to have one video that could hold both captions and audio description so we don't have to have 2 players back to back on a Canvas page that are essentially the same video.

As a visually impaired student, it would be nice if I could increase the size of the font in the transcript window. I can zoom in with the browser, but I would prefer for the font to get larger instead of zooming in and everything on the page getting larger.

The grayed out font color of the scheduled captures makes it almost unreadable. I rely on viewing the scheduled captures to make sure the list is complete. Please make it darker!!!

Leverage AI to generate a high level summary of the key points in a recording. Our accessiblity team currently spend a large amount of time producing high level notes from full transcripts to suit the needs of students who require assistance but can't use the full transcripts. This would also be of benefit for all students and support the coming chaptering feature

Could paid-for Closed Captions also automatically be added to the Transcripts track? A simple copy is all that is needed since the Transcript track .vtt file is in exactly the same format as the closed caption .vtt file. We need transcripts from closed captions that don’t require an admin to manually download the captions file and then re-upload into the Transcript track every time a new recording is automatically captioned. We have lots of users who have recordings that are regularly closed captioned where they need human generated transcripts based on those expensive ($180 per hour) closed captions as well which are usually significantly more accurate and cleaned-up than ASR transcripts. Parity with the captioning/transcribing workflow of the old ESS in this case would be excellent.

Please improve the video player interface and software settings. There is a recurring issue with the spacebar functionality for playing and pausing videos. When watching a lecture video, pressing the spacebar to pause often results in the hub losing focus, meaning I can’t use the spacebar again to resume playback or the arrow keys to rewind or fast forward. Instead, I have to manually use the mouse to click the play, pause, or navigation buttons. While this doesn’t happen every time—sometimes I can use the spacebar without any problems in full-screen mode—it occurs about 90% of the time and significantly disrupts the user experience. Occasionally, I can resolve this issue by clicking directly on the video screen itself, after which the spacebar and arrow keys resume working. However, this solution is inconsistent, and I haven’t been able to identify a reliable pattern. Sometimes cycling between the play and pause buttons a few times helps, but again, it’s not a foolproof fix. Additionally, mobile support needs improvement. Specifically, when accessing Echo videos through the Canvas app and subsequently using a browser, there is no hub option to enable full-screen mode for videos. While I understand there is a dedicated app, it doesn’t seem to be functional yet, leaving the browser as the only option. This makes it frustrating to play, pause, rewind, or fast forward videos. Addressing these issues would greatly enhance usability across platforms.