Expert: Brian Alves - 2/29/2008

Question
Hi Brian

I teach English as a Second Language (ESL) on a large
TV screen connected to a laptop using Powerpoint
presentations. However, I wish to expand into VDO or
any sound-image-motion formats with captions.

I have a lot of short, beautiful FLV files which I converted
into WMVs. Is there any software program that will enable
me to easily insert captions (like subtitles) in a WMV file?

For example, I have a 1 minute WMV of a butterfly and I'd
like to insert 3 three-line sentences in it for 20 seconds
each to make a lesson point. The sentences could then be
seen at the bottom of the screen throughout as the VDO
plays.

If you can guide me to any simple way to do this kind of
thing, I'd appreciate it. (I have a collection of 150 song
slideshows made in Photoshop and delivered by
Powerpoint, but they took about 40 hours each to make.
I don't have that kind of time anymore.)

Thanks for your consideration.

Frank

Answer
Magpie works with WMV files:
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/captions/magpie/version1/

The learning curve to get that going for what you want to accomplish could be too much.

I would recommend adding captions to the FLV files then converting over to WMV

Captionate is a free tool that will allow you to do this:
http://www.buraks.com/captionate/1.html