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November 19, 2009
YouTube Launches Automatic Captions; Great for Accessibility and Search
YouTube is introducing machine-generated automatic captioning to YouTube. The captions can also be translated. This obviously has incredible implications for the hearing-impaired and language translation. But it also has great implications for search.
Automatic captions will be generated using Google's automated speech recognition (ASR) technology and the same voice recognition algorithms used in Google Voice.
Additionally, auto-timing is being introduced. If you provide all the words in the video, Google will automatically time the captioning for you.
Of course, having what essentially amounts to transcripts for online video means that the text can be crawled and indexed and then yes - SEARCHED. Bring on the keyword research and seo scriptwriting for online videos!
Google put together a video on how to access the automatic captioning and auto-timing features:
Posted by Nathania Johnson on November 19, 2009 11:47 AM
Comments
Tanya English November 19, 2009 5:27 PM
Mostly, when a new feature is introduced, there are bound to be some problems. As the technology advances, I am sure some solution will surely be found. Till then it is an amazing feature!
Mike from Drop Ship November 20, 2009 12:36 AM
This looks like a really good feature and it will definitely become popular for all types of users on YouTube. Companies that use YouTube for promoting will find it good because then their videos will become searchable. Thanks for the information.
Oliver November 20, 2009 11:44 AM
Nice
Stephen November 20, 2009 12:32 PM
This new feature is pretty good and useful
and it is definitely gonna gain the popularity
Henry November 21, 2009 6:11 AM
That is cool, but how does it actually work? Voice recognition is still emerging as a technology.
Kevin July 26, 2010 7:20 PM
That is cool, but how does it actually work? Voice recognition is still emerging as a technology.
Kevin July 26, 2010 7:22 PM
You're right in that it's great for search. I think it's a bit dangerous for them to claim that the automatic, machine-generated voice recognition is accurate enough to provide access for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. As a long-time advocate for persons with hearing loss AND a shareholder in a company that has developed a patent-pending online media player that has robust search capabilities and ACCURATE transcription, I know the challenges of providing full accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing.
Check out our media player and the captioning features. http://www.realtimetranscription.com/featured/
The accurate transcript makes a big difference in accessibility, yet I hesitate to claim that we're fully accessible. (Yet I think we're better than any automatic machine-generated captions any day.) I hope they're prepared for the onslaught of complaints from the deaf community over the quality.
Again, SEARCHABLE - YouTube YES;
ACCESSIBLE - YouTube NO (not with the auto captions)
Tanya English, Technology Director
Realtime Transcription