User-captioned videos

More translation innovation: dotSUB enlists users to create captions for online videos. How it works? After uploading a video to dotSUB’s website, it’s first transcribed in the original language. Sentence by sentence, a user can then translate the resulting text into his or her own language. Subtitles are automatically imbedded in the video and can be viewed on dotSUB in everything from Korean to Ukrainian. The system also allows for collaborative captioning on a single video. If a work is still in progress, the amount of speech that’s been subtitled is displayed (e.g. Italian 12%), and other users can pitch in to finish the work. Like Wikipedia, anyone can edit or add to the captions. Another provider of captions for online videos is Project ReadOn, which doesn’t embed captions, showing them in a separate frame instead. While ReadOn’s captions are rendered in large type and therefore easy on the eyes, they’re prone to falling out of sync with videos, since both are loaded separately. As web video’s popularity continues to grow, making it accessible to both the hearing impaired and speakers or students of other languages is a worthy cause that could grow into a substantial niche market. One to look into if you’re involved with online media, accessibility or education. Websites: www.dotsub.com — www.projectreadon.com Spotted by: Sachin Pai