Properly implemented closed captions and subtitles are well-timed around the action, easy on the eye and delivered at a comfortable reading speed for the audience. They don’t detract from the viewer’s experience but help to make the on-screen messages more accessible to a wider audience.
Subtitling is quicker and more cost effective than dubbing and voiceover, especially when translating into multiple languages, and we can offer fast turnaround of translated text at competitive rates.
We are on a mission to make online broadcasts more accessible and truly international. To this end we are keen to encourage channel owners and content providers to translate their work into as many languages as possible. The first and most important step in achieving this is to caption your online work in your own language. Speech recognition tools are advanced but have not yet achieved the levels of accuracy required to produce a legible transcript on their own. Online translation tools will at least have a chance of some success when reading their input from a human written transcript.
Why you really ought to add human powered captions to your YouTube Channel.
| Traffic |
| When implemented correctly YouTube captions are read and indexed by both YouTube and Google just like text based web pages. Captions are treated as a full, accurate textual representation of your video.It is important to note that YouTube’s automatic captions are NOT indexed by Google or YouTube due to their inaccuracy.High quality professional captions are the quickest and best way to take instant advantage of SEO benefits and rapidly gain more viewers, subscribers and generate interest in your channel. |
| Accessibility |
| For too long hearing loss has been ignored, overlooked and disregarded despite the millions who live with its consequences.There are more than 11 million people in the UK with some form of hearing loss, 1 in 6 of the population. By 2031 this figure is expected to rise to 14.1 million people or nearly 20% of the population of the UK.According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 28 million of the 190 million Brazilians have hearing problems, a number corresponding to 14% of the Brazilian population.In the United States About 20% of Americans, 48 million people, report some degree of hearing loss .By the age of 65, one out of three people has a hearing loss.
60% of the people with hearing loss are either in the work force or in educational settings. Studies indicate that these numbers will only increase. |
By not captioning your videos correctly you are effectively excluding many people from your channel and you are losing out on thousands of viewers, potential customers and a huge business opportunity.
Captioning Formats for Online Video Content
| Format name | File extension | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| Scenarist Closed Caption | .scc | Exact representation of CEA-608 data. The preferred format whenever captions are based on CEA-608 features. |
The formats below do not convey CEA-608.
| Format name | File extension | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| SubRip | .srt | Only basic versions supported – no style information (markup) is recognised. |
| SubViewer | .sbv or .sub | Only basic versions supported – no style information (markup) is recognised. |
| MPsub (MPlayer subtitle) | .mpsub | “FORMAT=” parameter is supported. |
| LRC | .lrc | No styling, but enhanced format supported. |
| Videotron Lambda | .cap | Primarily used for Japanese subtitles. |
| Format Name | File extension | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| SAMI (Synchronised Accessible Media Interchange) | .smi or .sami | Only basic features supported – timecodes and text. |
| RealText | Rt | Only basic features supported – timecodes, text and simple markup. |
| WebVTT | .vtt | Initial implementation. |
| DFXP (Distribution Format Exchange Profile) | .ttml or .dfxp | Interpreted as TTML. |
| TTML (Timed-Text Markup Language) | .ttml | Partial implementation. SMPTE-TT extensions supported for CEA-608features. iTunes Timed Text (iTT) file format is supported; iTT is a subset of TTML, Version 1.0. |
Broadcast formats
| Format Name | File extension | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| EBU-STL (binary) | .stl | European Broadcasting Union standard. |
| Caption Center (binary) | .tds | Supports CEA-608 features. |
| Captions Inc. (binary) | CIN | Supports CEA-608 features. |
| Cheetah (ASCII text) | .asc | Supports CEA-608 features. |
| Cheetah (binary) | .cap | Supports CEA-608 features. |
| NCI (binary) | .cap | Supports CEA-608 features. |