
Show HN: Caption This – an iOS to make Instagram story videos accessible - jonbrennecke
Hi HN,<p>I made an iOS app called &quot;Caption This&quot; that adds real-time captions to videos for Instagram stories.<p>If you&#x27;ve ever tried to watch Instagram stories in a public space, then you already know the problem I’m trying to solve. The “Caption This” app solves this problem by using speech recognition to automatically add closed-captions to videos.<p>Instagram stories with captions get more engagement. They&#x27;re also more accessible to deaf members in your audience.<p>You can edit the captions in case the speech recognition thinks you meant &quot;ducking&quot;. You can also change the font and text&#x2F;background colors of the captions.<p>The app is built with React Native. At this point it&#x27;s about 2&#x2F;3 React Native and 1&#x2F;3 native iOS and Objective-C. It&#x27;s also open source (GPL v3) so you can check out the source too if you&#x27;re into that kind of thing!<p>Here is a link to the iOS app store: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;itunes.apple.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;app&#x2F;caption-this&#x2F;id1449087035" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;itunes.apple.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;app&#x2F;caption-this&#x2F;id1449087035</a><p>And here’s a link to the GitHub: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jonbrennecke&#x2F;CaptionThis" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jonbrennecke&#x2F;CaptionThis</a>
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wingerlang
Is this a problem 'instagram creators' actually want or need solved?

> improves engagement with your videos by automatically adding real-time
> captions

How do you know it improves it?

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jonbrennecke
That's a great question, thanks for asking!

This idea was largely inspired by the way Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
(@ocasio2018) uses Instagram. She’s a US Congresswoman and has 2M followers on
instagram. In her IG stories she often uses an app called “Clipomatic” that
does much the same thing as my app, but lacks a few key features which I
believe makes my app a significant upgrade. Clipomatic doesn’t let you import
videos from your library, and it forces you to use “cute” themed message
bubbles with your captions.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just one example. Plenty of influencers use
Clipomatic, and others use Adobe Premiere to add captions.

So that demonstrated significant market validation to me, so I took this idea
and talked to a few "influencers" that I know. Photographers and YouTube
creators and such—people with 1 to 10k followers, so not huge accounts, but
larger than most. They’ve helped me refine the idea, and some have tested it
one their own accounts where it’s gotten positive feedback.

There's also a service called Rev.com (rev.com/caption) that charges per
minute to add captions to videos. Since humans transcribe your video manually,
they also have a longer turn around. I've seen several brands on Instagram use
this, but I believe Caption This is a cheaper, faster alternative with the a
high quality result.

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wingerlang
That sounds good, good luck

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jonbrennecke
Thanks! I really appreciate it!

