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How do I add captions to my videos?

Easily add, generate, upload, or edit captions in MediaZilla to make your videos more accessible in multiple languages.

Updated this week

Adding captions makes your videos more accessible, improves comprehension, and can expand your audience to non-native speakers. MediaZilla gives you flexible options to generate, upload, edit, and manage captions.


Enable AI-Generated Captions

Captions can be generated automatically using AI. This is available as an add-on to your membership plan and must be configured by an Admin from the Add-Ons section of the Company Settings.

Options

  • Automatic – Captions are generated for all newly uploaded videos. Previously uploaded videos can still have captions generated manually.

  • Manual – You choose which videos will have captions generated.

  • Disabled – Prevents users in the company from generating captions.


Manually Generate Captions

  1. Open the video in your dashboard.

  2. Go to the Captions tab.

  3. Click Generate Captions.

  4. Once complete, the status will show as “Published.”


Upload Your Own Captions

Already have a captions file? You can upload a VTT file in any language:

  1. Open the Captions tab of your video.

  2. Click Upload, then select the language and file from your computer.

  3. Repeat as needed — you can upload captions in multiple languages, and viewers will be able to choose their preferred language.


Edit or Remove Captions

  • Edit – Download the VTT file, open it in a text editor, make changes, then re-upload it to replace the original.

  • Remove – In the Captions tab, click the options menu for the caption you want to remove, then delete it.


Viewer Experience

Captions are off by default but can be enabled by viewers anytime by clicking the “CC” icon in the player controls. The primary language is automatically labeled for them.


Troubleshooting: Why Captions Might Not Generate

If captions aren’t available for your video, it may be due to one of these reasons:

  • No audio track – If your video doesn’t include an audio track, re-export it from your editing software with audio, then use Replace Video to upload the corrected file.

  • Uploaded before October 2020 – Older uploads used a format not supported by the captions system. Download the original or locate the file locally, then re-upload it with Replace Video.

Once re-uploaded, captions can be generated as usual.


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