Per our last post, we discussed the benefits of using voice recognition software. However, we understand that part of the process is to go back and correct the errors. Voice writing “on the fly” by a trained professional still only produces captions that are 95% accurate at very best, but usually under 90%. (And this is using software that has been trained to understand an individual captioner’s voice.) Closed captioning remains a field where a trained human professional’s product will surpass any computer program.

So while this new embrace of closed captioning is still a step in the right direction, we encourage companies to remember that accuracy is important especially when it comes to your message. (Also remember that your SEO will be enhanced if the captioning text of your online video is completely accurate.) Why risk having your professional video ridiculed for closed captioning blunders?

To get an idea of just how inaccurate voice recognition captions can be, check out: http://youtubecaptionfail.com/.

I don’t know about you, but I had never thought about any other way of typing than to actually use my fingers and strike the keys on a computer keyboard.  I know I’m not the fastest typer out there, but I’ve always felt proud of my 70 wpm typing speed.  Somehow I managed to write all my college papers without ever missing a deadline. Granted, some of those papers were written the night before they were due and sometimes even printed out 30 minutes before class started, but they were always on time.  Then, of course, I was left walking like a zombie throughout campus for the rest of the day; nothing a good cup of coffee could not fix, right?

About 2 months ago I applied for a transcriber/caption editor position at Aberdeen Captioning, and while going through the interview process I was asked to transcribe an 8-minute long video.   As soon as I opened the video and saw the length of it, I thought, “Piece of cake,” so I started typing away.  After half an hour of changing back and forth between Microsoft Word and Media player, rewinding the video several times, and being nowhere close to being done, I found myself talking to the computer and saying, “Hold your horses!”  Needless to say I needed a break, but I kept thinking, if only I could type faster, or even better, if the people in the video could speak slower, this task wouldn’t be as frustrating.

Within my first week at the job I was introduced to my new dragon friend; Dragon Naturally Speaking.  Doing justice to its epic name, this speech recognition software has made my transcribing experience a lot more interesting from the moment I started using it.  Remember how in the movie Eragon, the dragon Saphira, could read Eragon’s thoughts?  That’s more or less how this program works.  Obviously Dragon doesn’t type what you’re thinking, but after a short training, the program learns how to understand your voice and you’re good to go!  So instead of typing what people say in a video, you speak the words and Dragon types it for you.  Pretty neat huh?

Despite being excited about using a new program, I still had my doubts. Could this voice recognition software really be faster than my 70 wpm typing? I mean, that’s a decent typing speed, right? Besides, when I type I can fix my mistakes immediately whereas with Dragon it’s easier to keep dictating and then go back and fix my mistakes later.  I was skeptical about this dictation program’s effectiveness against my own.  If there’s one thing I remember from my biology classes in college is that I have to test my theories to obtain an answer, so  I decided to put an end to my doubts and find out if all my years of typing would help me compete with this dragon.

Two minutes of typing. I don’t remember ever surrendering so fast, not even when I ran 3 miles under 100⁰ F weather in cross-country! I had to face it; I can speak significantly faster than I can type. The Dragon Naturally speaking software is a great tool that tremendously improves your typing speed, especially if you’re typing a long paper; after all, Dragon doesn’t get tired of typing and I hardly believe anyone would ever get tired of talking.  I mainly use the program to dictate what other people speak, but I can’t help to wonder how much it would’ve helped me in college when I had to write those 10-page papers. This program types words that I don’t even know how to spell, automatically capitalizes words after periods and what’s best, I can keep training it to understand me better every time I notice a mistake; that’s a keeper, if you ask me.

Yo no sé ustedes, pero yo nunca había pensado sobre ningún otro tipo de escribir en la computadora más que el de usar mis dedos para oprimir las teclas de la computadora. Yo sé que no soy la persona más rápida al escribir en la computadora, pero siempre me he sentido orgullosa de mi velocidad de 70 palabras por minuto. De alguna manera siempre logré escribir mis reportes en la universidad sin que se me pasara ninguna fecha límite para entregar los trabajos. Claro, algunos de esos reportes fueron escritos la noche anterior de su fecha límite y algunos fueron impresos 30 minutos antes de que empezara la clase, pero siempre los entregué a tiempo. Obvio después yo me quedaba caminando como un zombi alrededor de la escuela por el resto del día; nada que una buena taza de café no pueda arreglar, ¿Están de acuerdo?

Hace alrededor de dos meses solicité un trabajo de transcriptora/editora de subtítulos para la compañía Aberdeen Captioning y durante el proceso de la entrevista se me pidió transcribir un video de 8 minutos de largo. En cuanto me di cuenta de la longitud del video, pensé, “Regalado,” así que empecé a escribir en la computadora de inmediato. Después de media hora de cambiar continuamente de una ventana de Microsoft Word a la otra del reproductor Windows Media Player, de regresar el video varias veces, y de no estar ni siquiera cerca de haber terminado, me encontré hablándole a la computadora y diciéndole, “¡Espérate!” Sin duda necesitaba un descanso, pero seguí pensando que si tan sólo yo pudiera escribir a computadora más rápido, o aún mejor, si la gente en el video pudiera hablar más lento, esta tarea no fuera tan frustrante.

Dentro de mi primera semana de trabajo se me presentó a mi nuevo amigo dragón; Dragon Naturally Speaking. Haciéndole justicia a su nombre épico, este programa de reconocimiento de voz ha hecho mi experiencia al transcribir mucho más interesante desde el momento en que empecé a usarlo. ¿Recuerdan como en la película Eragon el dragón Saphira podía leer los pensamientos de Eragon? Es más o menos así como este programa funciona. Obviamente Dragon no escribe lo que ustedes están pensando, pero después de un corto entrenamiento, el programa aprende a entender su voz y después de eso, ¡Ya están listos! Así que en vez de escribir lo que la gente dice en el video, usted simplemente repite las palabras dichas y Dragon las escribe. Nada mal, ¿No?

A pesar de estar emocionada sobre este nuevo programa, todavía tenía mis dudas. ¿Podría este programa de reconocimiento de voz ser más rápido que mi velocidad de escribir a 70 palabras por minuto? O sea, esa es una buena velocidad de escribir en la computadora, ¿verdad? Además, cuando escribo en la computadora puedo corregir mis errores inmediatamente mientras que con Dragon es más fácil seguir dictando y después regresar para corregir mis errores. No estaba segura de la efectividad de este programa de dictado al lado de mi propia efectividad. Si hay algo que recuerdo de mis clases de biología en la universidad es que tengo que poner a prueba mis teorías para obtener una respuesta, así que decidí poner un alto a mis dudas y descubrir si todos mis años de escribir en la computadora me ayudarían a competir contra este dragón.

Dos minutos de escribir en la computadora. No me acuerdo nunca haberme rendido tan rápido, ¡Ni siquiera cuando corrían 3 millas bajo un clima de 100 °F en el campo a través! Tuve que aceptarlo; puedo hablar significantemente más rápido de lo que puedo escribir en la computadora. El programa Dragon Naturally Speaking es una gran herramienta que mejora tremendamente su velocidad al escribir a computadora, especialmente si están escribiendo un reporte largo; después de todo, Dragon no se cansa de escribir y me cuesta mucho creer que alguien se canse de hablar. Yo principalmente uso este programa para dictar lo que otras personas hablan, pero no puedo dejar de preguntarme cuánto me hubiera ayudando en la universidad cuando tuve que escribir esos reportes de 10 páginas. Éste programa escribe palabras que ni siquiera sé cómo deletrear, automáticamente usa mayúsculas después de los puntos y lo que es mejor, puedo seguir entrenándolo para qué me entienda mejor cada vez que corrijo un error; en mi opinión, un muy buen partido.

SOBRE LA AUTORA: Clara Mendez es una transcriptora/editora de subtítulos para Aberdeen Captioning Inc. Al haber aprendido el inglés como su segundo idioma, ella se ha vuelto consciente de la importancia de la comunicación intralingüística para poder expresar ideas a una mayor cantidad de gente.  Clara cree en traducir no solo el contenido, sino que también la calidad temática del mensaje y ella valora la exactitud de una buena traducción del inglés al español.  Clara se esfuerza para ayudar a la gente a comunicarse mejor sin importar la familiaridad que ellos tengan con el idioma inglés, y a usar la información que ella obtiene para extender su conocimiento día con día. Para contactarse con Clara, mande un correo electrónico a info@abercap.com o llame al 800-688-6621.  Para más información sobre los subtítulos o closed captions, visite www.abercap.com.

California Representative Henry A. Waxman states: “Today, as we mark the 20th anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act, the House is giving Americans with disabilities access to smart phones, other communications technology, and video programming. This bill ensures that millions of Americans with disabilities can participate in our 21st century digital society.”

Senator John Kerry said, “Technology and the Internet have broken down barriers, and no one should be or has to be excluded from modern communications and the new economy because of a disability. It’s been 20 years since the Americans With Disabilities Act knocked down barriers to employment and government services — and now it’s time to do the same thing [with regard to] blocking people with disabilities from getting online.”

So what happens next? The bill gets sent to the Senate for vote and if it passes, it will be signed into law!

Mark Robertson wrote an article on his website titled “In-Depth Look at YouTube Closed Captions, SEO, and YouTube Indexing,” where he explores the many added benefits of adding closed captions to YouTube videos. In addition to increasing accessibility and allowing your video to have a global reach with the addition of multi-language subtitles, Robertson points out yet another added benefit—advanced search filtering. Both Google and YouTube allow users to filter their video search to include only videos with associated closed captions. If your Web video is not closed captioned, you are not only limiting your video’s accessibility, but you are missing out on an easy marketing strategy.

For more information on captioning your Web or YouTube video, visit our website!

Need multi-language translation for your YouTube video? No problem! Aberdeen will provide a professional and experienced translator to ensure that your message is understood globally.  All you need is a YouTube account.

To learn more about DCMP’s “YouTube Ready” qualification visit:

http://youtubeready.dcmp.org/

Also, watch Aberdeen’s YouTube video for more information on our captioning and subtitling services for your YouTube video at:

http://abercap.com/youtube_captioning.html

With a growing trend towards Internet video, advocates are urging Congress to pass a bill that would mandate captions on online videos that have also appeared on television. They are also pushing for captions to be more accessible by requiring closed-caption buttons on remote controls. Stelter notes, “The prospect of legislation is motivating some major Web site operators to add captions more quickly.” A few companies are attempting to create a universal standard for online captions, which would make it easier to adapt TV captions to other formats.

Media companies are beginning to understand the importance of captions and are now taking action. YouTube and Google provide captions for any video uploaded as of April, which is mutually beneficial—the text added to their videos aides in searches. Hulu, a Web site that offers free TV episodes, now offers captions for many of its popular shows. Eric Feng, the chief technical officer for Hulu, stated that “Users send us feedback about closed captions more often than almost any other feature, so what started as a small side project has turned into a very important part of our user experience.”

Adding captions to all Web videos is a giant endeavor, which will likely take a huge amount of time, but in the end, it will provide accessibility to the 36 million Americans who rely on captions.

The FCC has also implemented new contact information requirements. This requires video programming distributors to post their contact information on their websites and billing statements, so that consumers may contact them directly to report problems with their closed captioning.