Amara allows users to upload videos from a number of video hosting platforms (such as Vimeo and YouTube) using in-site software to embed said videos. Amara supports YouTube, Vimeo, HTML5, Theora (ogg, ogv), WebM, MP4, FLV, and MP3 audio. It allows for the managing of videos and subtitles through a powerful API.

Amara then allows for the adding of subtitles to your video. After uploading your video, Amara will prompt users to add subtitles in the users native language. Amara makes it easier than most other captioning systems, showing one four second clip at a time before automatically pausing to allow users to add their subtitles/captions, and then repeating the process until the video is finished.

Amara Subtitle formats:

When users finish their subtitling, they have a few options; they may either finish and upload the now captioned video or make the video public on Amara for further collaboration. Amara’s primary function is to bring content to as many places and people as possible, so most users make their video(s) public after creating their initial subtitles/captions. At this point, once the video is public, the collaboration process begins. Since Amara operates by crowdsourcing volunteers, sending your video out to the public allows for multilingual volunteers to create subtitles/captions in different languages. These subtitles are often created, revised, and improved by those with an intimate knowledge/understanding of the language, and thus makes the video that much more accessible to people with hearing disabilities and/or language barriers.

Once users are satisfied with their subtitles/captions in however many languages they’ve done, they can export their video. The videos– now captioned/subtitled– are compatible with a variety of video hosting platforms as Amara overlays the subtitles using JavaScript. Subtitles can be synced directly to YouTube (if you are the account owner) or uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo. Additionally, users may download the subtitle files themselves and integrate them to the video if you run into problems or the video is a hosted file.

Amara is compatible with most (if not all) major web browsers, though it does require Adobe Flash. It is not, however, compatible with mobile browsers from my understanding.