YouTube has turned on the ability to add full closed captions to videos. This will not only allow videos to appeal more directly to foreign audiences, but will give YouTube excellent data for searching videos and targeting ads to them. After all, a complete set of subtitles is the same as a transcript of the video. And you can upload subtitles for as many languages as you want. It’s excellent data. From the YouTube blog:
You can add captions to one of your videos by uploading a closed caption file using the “Captions and Subtitles” menu on the editing page. To add several captions to a video, simply upload multiple files. If you want to include foreign subtitles in multiple languages, upload a separate file for each language. There are over 120 languages to choose from and you can add any title you want for each caption. If a video includes captions, you can activate them by clicking the menu button located on the bottom right of the video player. Clicking this button will also allow viewers to choose which captions they want to see.
Here’s a Japanimation video with the closed captions (cartoon nudity alert). They can be turned on and off by clicking on the “CC” button that pops up at the bottom right. More info here.
Yeah , its been a while i have seen UMG ( Universal Music group’s) videos titled ” with closed captioned ” and nothing in it . Youtube finally adds it !.
Heard of one called http://www.tubecaption.com/
I don’t know how close captioning exactly works. But it might give rise to applications that will help searching for texts, words inside the videos… like search for “Asta la vista baby” and it returns terminator !!!
Beautiful! What a great move in the ongoing improvement of the web for the deaf and/or mumbly YouTube videos.
Looks like the closed captioning doesn’t work for embedded videos (yet). At least for me, I had to view this video directly on YouTube to be given the option to turn CC on and off.
you can get captions that works in embeds from http://www.subply.com
Very cool feature. As mentioned above, it doesn’t seem to work with embedded videos. Also, the Greasemonkey script “Youtube Prevent Autoplay” disables the CC pop-up option, probably for the same reason.
I’m curious how the uploaded CC file is formatted to synchronize with the video.
“I’m curious how the uploaded CC file is formatted to synchronize with the video.”
Viper - you coordinate how / where text displays w/ Start & Stop times for text implementation
This is great step. There are many nonprofit organizations that we work with that want maximum accessibility as well as organizations working internationally.
But the big cost is still getting the high-quality transcripts to use for this. Basic transcription is too inaccurate to be used.
Wonder how easily this will be to pivot towards Section 508 compliance? Know a number of government entities that would love to use YouTube but run into the accessibility issues of caption-less Flash video.
Dude - did you seriously just use “Japanimation” in a serious sense here? I’d say that’s awesomely retro, but I don’t think you meant it ironically.
Yeah, I looked at that comment and thought - “who the f*ck says THAT anymore?”
You think there are too many ‘Downfall’ Hitler parody videos now, wait until this new feature catches on!
Of course this will be abused greatly.
Cool YouTube service. I went to http://www.subply.com and they created the subtitles for me. And it also works in embeds!!!!
Hehe, nice advertisement of your own company twice in the comments there. I hope Youtube adding captions won’t ruin your business model completely.
Very handy for karaoke on music videos too…
How can I get the subply service? any special requirements? Do they upload the SRT for me?
simply visit their site (www.subply.com), submit your URL & get an embed code you can use immediately. captions appear on the embed within 24 hours. they are ooffer FREE captions for videos shorter than 5 minutes (and say they have great rates in general, but I didn’t try) . currently they send you the SRT via mail (I understood they plan to automate it).
Wonderful! Google video has this feature and we’ve been using it to add captions for people who don’t have sound or are hard of hearing/deaf.
Unfortunately it is not being used properly on quite a few videos, which makes them virtually un-watchable or very un-pleasant to watch.
Not very user-friendly (I have to create a file manually?) http://www.overstream.net has a user-friendly editor, AND allows embedding. Did I mention that it works with YouTube to boot?
When does YouTube plan on adding meaningful profit margins?
I don’t see any closed captions in that video, but still it sounds like a good idea if/when they work.
“appeal more directly to foreign audiences” I think it will appeal more for Deaf audiences, HELLO!
Closed captioning does open up a great deal of potential spam. But the benefits will outweigh the potential costs.
With youtube better able to identify what a video is about there’s less chance a spammer can post a porn video under the title of “barking dog” or some other misleading title.
It is a very useful service, however, i doubt if it will catch up. It is not intuitive.