Imagine watching a drama but you can’t hear properly – or wanting to sing along to your favourite song but you can’t remember the lyrics. Boring and annoying right?
These scenarios can be altered to interesting ones if you simply have the subtitles.
More than 100 empirical studies highlight that captioning a video improves comprehension of, attention to, and memory for the video. Captions are particularly beneficial for watching videos in non-native language, as well as for children and adults learning to read, and for those who are Deaf or hard of hearing.
What is subtitling and transcription?
Subtitles are a type of audio-visual translation (AVT). In other words, subtitling is adding translation of the audio in the form of text, which is displayed synchronically with the visual on screen.
Captions generated via automated speech recognition are not yet without interfering error, but when auto-generated captions reach human parity-transcribed captions, technology will be able to harness the power of captions.
Why should I use subtitles?
- Subtitles for corporate training videos
With the recent pandemic outbreak, new doors to remote hiring and operations have opened, which in turn have suddenly hiked the need for training videos for smooth onboarding and train new hires. It appears that if you can get your viewers to read through your videos it increases the engagement.
- Subtitles as a language learning tool
With the recent breakthrough in the OTT platform, watching movies, dramas, etc have seen a never before gluing power even if the content is not in the native language of the viewers. People are generally recognised to be visual learners and since they can hear the foreign language while reading the translation in the subtitles, they are confronted with many new words, sentence structures and expressions. Therefore, subtitles are a fantastic way for developing an ear for more nuanced features of foreign languages.
- Watching videos in noisy or sound-sensitive environments
Users recently tend to watch videos on social network with the sound off to avoid being disruptive by playing it loudly or in noisy public places where they cannot hear the sound. Digiday UK reports that 85% of Facebook videos autoplay on mute and according to marketers, subtitles are original video solutions for grabbing the attention of viewers while scrolling through their news feed on social networks.
- Subtitles improve SEO
Additionally, with the recent jump in content marketing avenues, search engines (like Google) with the ability to index the subtitles embedded in them have given a boost in the search rankings of videos. This can make a great difference on the number of users who find, for instance, a company website, watch its videos and enjoy the content.
- Hard of hearing individuals need subtitles for understanding videos
Think about people suffering from hearing issues, wouldn’t it be harsh on them to keep them away from the enormous pool of content available out there? Thus, providing subtitles for hearing impaired is a must to ensure content is being shown in an inclusive way and enjoyed by a greater number of people.
The future of transcription and subtitling
With entertainment, business and learning taking a global stage, transcription and subtitling certainly seems to be one of the arts that giants in these industries may not want to overlook to glue their consumers to their services and offerings.
When it comes to subtitles, accuracy is critical. If captions misrepresent or misinterpret the conversation taking place on screen, audience who depend on those captions due to language barriers or other impairing issues, might miss out on important points. To avoid closed caption fails, professional assistance in transcription is opening new avenues for the professional service providers. Secure, accurate and professional transcription using industry-leading AI, cloud-based tools, and professional services when you need them, calls for more indulged TSPs on this front.
thebigword supports a wide range of different audio and video transcription services, including Text to Speech, Verbatim and detailed transcription models, making it easy to select the right service to convert your audio or video files into readable text.
For more information about our transcription and subtitling solutions, please visit this page.
