How to order subtitles for a video
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How to order manually checked subtitles for a video
Video subtitling services have been tendered and subtitles for videos are ordered from Amberscript. The service is available to HAMK staff and the resulting costs are allocated to the target number indicated by the subtitling subscriber. More detailed pricing can be seen in Intra.
To order subtitles, you must have a user account for the service. This instruction explains how to get yourself a user account and how to order subtitles for your video. Please note that it takes 1-2 business days to create a user account.
If you want to learn more about the legal basis of subtitling videos, see the article Act on the provision of digital services promotes the accessibility of the videos and audio files
If you need high-quality, manually checked video subtitles, go to the part käyttäjätilin luominen.
Ordering automatic subtitles for a video
You can also order an automatically created subtitle file for the video if your video has been uploaded to HAMK’s Kaltura video service at kaltura.hamk.fi.
Ordering automatically generated subtitles does not require creating a user account for the Amberscript service. The price of subtitling is €6.5 per hour. You’ll not receive invoice after the order is complete, the costs are divided per unit.
Use auto-subtitles when:
- typos in subtitles are allowed
- you have time to check the subtitles and correct the necessary parts
- you need usable subtitles for your video quickly
- Log in to the kaltura.hamk.fi –video service and select the video to be subtitled. Click the actions drop-down menu open and select Caption & Enrich.

- Under Source Media Language, select the language spoken in the video. After that, press the Submit button and the order will be processed. The average delivery time for finished subtitles is 30 min.

- In the Status column of the Existing Requests section, you can check whether the subtitling order has been completed.

- The finished subtitles appears in the video’s Captions menu, which can be accessed from the Actions drop-down menu (edit)

- The automatically generated subtitles are displayed in the Captions menu:
-
Set as Default – here you select which of the subtitles (if there are many subtitle files) will be shown to the user by default when playing the video.
- Edit – editing the subtitle data fields (language, label, accuracy).
- Delete – deletion of the subtitle file from Kaltura
- Download – download the subtitle file from Kaltura to your computer
- Show On Player – this determines whether subtitles can be selected from the video’s subtitle (cc) menu
- Edit Captions – subtitle file editing (text correction and timestamp editing)
-

Making subtitles manually in Kaltura
You can also create an empty subtitle file in Kaltura and subtitle the video manually.
Use manual subtitling when:
- the video is short
- you have the speech of the video as a transcribed text file
- Click Create New Captions

- Subtitle language and accuracy – options (Language and Accuracy) are for your own record keeping and help to distinguish between subtitle files of the same video. The value entered in the Label field is visible to the video viewer as a subtitle selection in the CC (closed captions) menu at the bottom of the video.

- Functions of the subtitle editor:
- Select which subtitle file you are editing.
- Here you can enter a word or term that is transcribed incorrectly in the subtitles. In the Replace with field, you enter the correct word or term. After pressing the Replace button, the text sections are automatically corrected
- The name of the speaker can be entered automatically in front of the selected subtitles (check box to the left of the time stamps).
- Entering time stamps (when the speech starts and ends) and text. Time stamps are entered in the format hh:mm:ss:ms (hours:minutes:seconds:milliseconds)
- An empty subtitle field is added from the Plus button

- The Save button saves the changes made to the subtitle. The changes are canceled with the Revert button.

Creating a user account for the Amberscript service
To create a user account, you need a target number to which the subtitling service invoice is addressed. Discuss the creation of a user account with your supervisor first so that the cost can be allocated correctly. The subscriber unit can have one or more user accounts, depending on how they want to organize subtitling orders.
Make a new ticket to IT ServiceDesk in the category “IT services” and write “Creating a user account for the Amberscript subtitling service” as the subject / title. You can order several user accounts with the same ticket.
The following information must be provided for each user account:
- subscriber’s name and e-mail
- organization
The organization can be Häme University of Applied Sciences, Häme Vocational Institute or HAMK Academy (summer university) - target number
- the person with whom you have agreed to create a user account (supervisor, project manager, etc.)
Once your user account has been created, you will receive invitation e-mail with registering link. Check your spam folder if you don’t see the invitation in your inbox folder

Click the link in the message to proceed to the next step. If the link cannot be clicked, copy it into the browser’s address field.

Enter your work email address (username@hamk.fi) in the form and create a password to use the service. Accept the terms of use and click Sign up. Do not click the Login with SSO button.

Complete the form with the following information:
- first name
- organization in the form of HAMK
- press Next

You can press Skip on this form to move on.

All set, you can now start using the service by downloading the first video for subtitling from the Upload file button.

After registering to the service, you will receive a confirmation request by e-mail. Click the link in the message to confirm your email address.
Ordering video subtitles
The subtitle delivery schedule depends on the length of the subtitled video as follows:
Video duration | Video less than 10 min. | Video 10-30 min. | Video 31-60 min. | Video over 60 min. |
Normal delivery time | within 2 working days | within 3 working days | within 4 working days | within 8 working days |
Go to https://www.amberscript.com/fi/ , which will take you to Amberscript’s home page and you can log in to the order portal using the Log in button.

You can also directly access the subscription portal login window from: https://app.amberscript.com/
After logging in, the My files -page opens. There you can upload a new video to the service, download completed subtitles, view your own previous uploads and view your own information. Log out of the service from the pop up menu in the upper right corner.

The Upload file button is visible in the “My Files” page of the service, where you can navigate by clicking the upper left corner Amberscript logo or via upper right corner pop-up menu.

Start uploading the video to the service from the Upload File button.

You can either drag the video file to be subtitled into the box or select the desired file from your own computer using the “or choose file(s)” button. Supported video file formats (mp4, m4v, mov, mpg) are shown below the button. Please note that the maximum size of the file to be downloaded is 6GB.

The video to be subtitled appears in the Upload files window. If you wish, you can add new video files from the Add more files section. For each video, the spoken language and the number of speakers must be specified (1). Please note that in this window you cannot select translated subtitles (for example, Finnish – English), instead you must indicate the language spoken in the video. Next, select the Subtitles service (2).

If you want to order translated subtitles (i.e. speech in a different language than the subtitles), you should choose Translated Subtitles. Select the subtitle language from the Add another language menu. HAMK’s contract price only covers Finnish-English translation subtitles and translation subtitles for other languages may incur additional costs (see prices in intra). Also note that translation subtitles cannot be selected per video – every video uploaded with the same order gets translated.
By choosing Use Glossary, you can add a glossary to your order, which defines the correct spelling and translation of special terms.

Special cases of orders
Special cases of subtitling are e.g. rush orders (on the order form under Rush order) and so-called hearing impaired subtitles. Such orders are priced separately and must be ordered by email from operations@amberscript.com.
First upload the video to the service (do not tick the Rush Order selection box) and write an email to the above address immediately after uploading. See the following paragraphs for more detailed information about rush orders and hearing-impaired subtitling.
Rush order
Rush order means an order whose delivery time is faster than the delivery schedule stated below. Rush subtitling is more expensive than subtitling delivered on a regular schedule. The standard delivery time depends on the length of the subtitled video as follows:
Video duration | Video less than 10 min. | Video 10-30 min. | Video 31-60 min. | Video over 60 min. |
Normal delivery time | within 2 working days | within 3 working days | within 4 working days | within 8 working days |
In your contact, mention the user account (email address) and the name of the video file that the urgent order applies to.
Subtitling for the hearing impaired
Subtitles for the hearing impaired (SDH-captions) refers to subtitles that have other essential sounds than speech in terms of understanding the content. Such sounds can be, for example, knocking on the door, alarm or signal sounds, and a person speaking outside the picture. In your contact, mention the user account (e-mail address) and the name of the video file to which the hearing-impaired subtitling applies.
Sending the order and cost center
Before sending the order (Checkout), you can enter the cost center with the Project reference (enter code) option. The cost center is later printed on the PDF invoice and speeds up the processing of the invoice in Palette.

Receiving the subtitle file and attaching it to the video
You will receive notification about the completion of the subtitle file in your email. The file can be found in Amberscript’s subscription portal in the My Files. Save the finished subtitle file to your own computer, from where it is easy to attach to the desired video. Instructions for adding a subtitle file to a video can be found in HAMK’s Digipeda instructions article
Kaltura Captionsin tekstitysten lisääminen ja muokkaus.
NOTE! Complaints about the quality of subtitles should be submitted as soon as possible, so that the service provider can respond quickly. Complaints are made to an email address operations@amberscript.com
Other things to note about subtitled video
Subtitles appear at the bottom of the video, so you should leave space for it at the bottom of the recording. So if the video is intended to show, for example, a slide show, make sure that the subtitles do not go over the text of the slide or too close to it, which makes it difficult to read the subtitles.
Below is a picture where there is plenty of space for subtitles in the slide show.

And here is a picture where the text of the slide and the subtitles of the recording are too close to each other.
