In recent years, there has been an immense growth in digital content production largely as a response to the audiences’ demand for more personalized content. Players in the industry are putting strong mechanisms in place to make their existing and new content accessible to all people, regardless of their disabilities, gender, language, and nationality.
Closed-captions are a part of these mechanisms, complemented by transcriptions, subtitles, and dubbing in multiple languages. Closed-captions are sometimes mistakenly thought to be the same as transcripts or monolingual subtitles. This article and the infographic outline in which ways they differ from each other in detail. For your convenience, let us summarize the primary differences as follows:
Now, you are ready to learn how TRT World, a news reporting channel, began captioning its stream as a responsible media corporation by recognizing that accessibility is a universal right.
TRT World is the international news platform of The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, the national public broadcaster of Turkey. Since its launch, TRT World has pursued a mission of providing new perspectives on world events to global audiences.
The channel holds itself responsible for revealing the humanitarian side of each story it brings to screens and leverages news reporting as a means to inspire change. Setting itself on such a mission, TRT World has unsurprisingly recognized adding captions to its streams as a corporate strategy in terms of both ethical and practical senses.
The Non-negotiables:
The Channel wanted to use a solution which was more scalable and accessible as compared to traditional and time-consuming methods for captioning. When our product developers explained Ollang’s AI-powered closed-captioning services in detail, TRT World was convinced that we had every means to meet their expectations.
“For us Ollang:
Always accessible, anytime and anywhere,
Client support that never lets you down,
Innovative and ready to act on the feedback.”
Mehmet Güneş,
Scheduling and Q&A Manager, TRT World
-Ollang offers a wide range of file formats; however, EBU-STL was not among them. Our product developers set to work immediately while Ollang’s experienced translators were assigned with the task of captioning audios. By the time, the first captions were completed by our translators through the cloud-based automation system on Olabs, the new file format was ready to be integrated into the delivery on the client side.
-Olabs served as a reliable means of streamlining the process for both our clients and translators in every step of the project. The AI-powered system produced the first layer of closed-captions. These were considerably accurate and required a minimum degree of revision. Our translators edited and refined the raw captions to a high standard for each single project.
-As a result, the streams were captioned at quality and speed and delivered to our client with the required standard.
Every 30-minute long content was completed within 3 hours by using Ollang’s closed-captioning solution.
Our client wanted people with hard of hearing to be able to reach their reports and broadcasts without facing any barriers. Considering that over 1.5 billion people live with hearing loss globally, the motive behind their efforts was very valuable.
However, it is important to note that closed captioning is not just for the hearing impaired. When we look at statistics, about 80% of viewers who use captions — on all platforms — are not hearing impaired. There are multiple reasons that explain the tendency of people to watch videos with the sound off. Increased viewing in public venues, whether on a mobile device or in open settings such as bars, restaurants, health clubs, airports, or other venues is considered the main reason.
Besides, audiences who speak a language other than the native language used in the video may have difficulty in capturing unaccustomed dialects, slang uses and fast speakers. Another distinct benefit of closed captions is that they can be referred to as written materials in educational settings.
With captions and subtitles in multiple languages, you can provide your audience with equal access to learning and entertainment while improving your viewer base and corporate reputation. Dubbing is another effective way to strengthen the reachability of content because it facilitates the learning process and viewing experience by eliminating the distractions of reading subtitles.
AI-powered localization solutions like we use at Ollang combine cutting-edge technology with the human touch, thus lessening the time-frames and production costs associated with traditional ways of localizing the content. As humans always ensure the raw materials to meet the highest standards, you get a solution which is high quality and with more affordable prices.
We are always ready to be on your side as a trusted end-to-end solution provider. Let us roll up our sleeves and get the job done for you. You can have a look at the most frequently asked questions here or directly contact us at marketing@ollang.com.