File-Based Captioning and Subtitling

All video content should have captions or subtitles.

In the US and other countries there are specific regulations that govern what types of video must be captioned and how it should be captioned, but in actual practice, all video should have captions or subtitles for several reasons:

It helps the deaf and hearing impaired so they can enjoy your programming.
People in public areas like bars and restaurants, where the sound is usually turned down can understand what’s going on as they watch a sporting event or breaking news.
It’s essential for today’s easily distracted viewer who watches TV with the sound turned down because they are also paying attention to their tablet or smart phone.
It helps people whose primary language may be different than the language in the video.
And, lastly, for online video it helps your SEO because the captions assist search engines that constantly search for content they think you will like.

While there are many different levels of subtitling software and services from free to premium we know broadcasters and content producers want to balance cost with accuracy to find the happy medium that enables them to get quality subtitles and captions at an affordable price.

File-based captioning and subtitling is driven primarily by humans spending hours and hours watching video and listening to audio to turn the spoken word into text to be displayed on televisions, computers and mobile devices to help the hearing impaired better understand what’s being said in the programs they are watching.

At BroadStream we know the number of qualified live and file-based subtitlers is declining as retirees leave the industry and are not being replaced because younger job seekers don’t see this as a viable long-term career opportunity and instead select jobs they perceive to offer more advancement and excitement.

As a result, we see the future of file-based captioning and subtitling and it will transition from humans to machine-powered solutions over the next few years.

AI or artificial intelligence has made great strides in both accuracy and context and is comparable to human captioning in many situations. As part of this transition we are planning a soft, invitation only, launch of a new service called SubCaptioner. It will utilize a combination of speech-to-text machine processing as well as human editors to provide new levels of service we think all users of subtitles will appreciate and embrace. For more information click here to view the SubCaptioner product page.