Over the past couple of months, Facebook has been publishing a series of weekly video interviews with internal experts on various aspects of its video tools, covering Creator Studio, Live Producer, broadcasting tools and more.

The videos touch on all the key elements of each function, while they also provide some valuable pointers as to how to make the most of Facebook’s video tools, including what they were designed for and how they work. This week’s interview looks at closed captions, and how to ensure the best, most accurate captions for your video content. 

In the video interview, Facebook provides insight into features like automated closed captions, which can detect the language that people are speaking in the uploaded video (Facebook currently supports 16 languages), in order to create auto captions, with minimal input from the creator.

But auto-captions are not perfect, and Facebook also provides some key tips for maximizing your captions through the auto-captioning process.

• Use them – Facebook notes that everybody benefits from having captions on your videos, because they cater not only to people with hearing difficulties, but also those watching in an environment where they can’t utilize sound
• Capture clear audio – Facebook underlines the importance of audio quality in facilitating auto-captions – the better the sound quality, the more accurate your auto captions will be
• Use a microphone – If you’re looking to create better quality video content, and utilize captions, investing in a decent microphone makes a lot of sense
• Make the audio as clean as you can – Facebook recommends running your audio through a compressor to improve audio quality

Facebook also notes that there is a simplified caption editing process which can be accessed within Creator Studio so you can revise and refine your auto caption transcript if you need. 

Facebook notes that it’s next looking to focus on making caption generation faster, and streamlining the video posting process.

As noted, the videos provide some valuable insight into key video elements, and while a lot of the information presented is largely what you already know, there are always a couple of helpful pointers to get you thinking, and be aware of within Facebook’s tools.