2014: A Good Year For Subtitling?!

Observing 2014 through the eyes of a subtitling technology company perhaps suggests that it has been a rather lean year in the way of exciting new developments like those encountered in past years, such as 3D and 4K, writes John Birch – Strategic Partnerships Manager at Screen Systems.

No earth-shattering technology has emerged out of the blue as a surprise, but what has been more apparent this year is a significant change in how content is delivered to viewers, combined with progressive changes in consumer habits.

Collectively, those elements have carved out a diverging path for the future of subtitling, complete with new and complex challenges. Content is being delivered and viewed across an ever-widening range of platforms and devices raising questions about both localisation and accessibility. Legislative pressure for improving access services is building in varying degrees, depending on location.

The Federal Communications Commission in the US has already enforced a directive for the closed captioning of IP delivered video and programming. Whereas in the UK, ATVOD, OFCOM's designated regulatory authority for VOD services, has currently stretched only as far as 'encouraging' service providers to make their on-demand services more accessible to people with hearing or sight loss.

Disappointingly, ATVOD affirmed in 2013 in their Provision of Video on Demand Access Services Report, that only seven out of 40 sampled VOD service providers offered access services to their customers. Considering one in six people in the UK suffer from some degree of hearing loss, that's a worrying statistic.

Despite the continuing battle between content providers and platform operators over who should be responsible for delivering accessibility services to consumers, both agree that technology, operational and cost issues are the main obstacles to provision.

One of the most difficult technical challenges – namely being able to deliver correctly synchronised subtitles for streamed content – has been overcome by Screen this year. Our latest solution is capable of delivering high quality live subtitles, precisely synchronised live video streams to a browser.

Content producers and broadcasters are still keeping a very close eye on the cost of producing access services such as subtitling, audio description, signing and dubbing. Screen is involved in the EC-funded Hbb4All project, which seeks to establish normalised workflows and specialist tools targeted at minimising production effort whilst capitalising on the opportunities of the HbbTV platform. This project is also investigating viewer-selected text size, style and positions to optimise subtitle readability.

Automated speech and language technologies are continuing to advance, and the use of speech recognition to facilitate live subtitling (in the languages where tools are available) is now commonplace.

This technology, coupled with automated timecoding technology to synchronise subtitle text to programme speech have been integrated into Screen's high end WinCAPS Qu4ntum preparation tool, while for the freelance market a new WinCAPS Q-Lite version has just been launched, offering a pay-as-you-go usage model.

So that's 2014 from a subtitling perspective, but what do we think the future holds?

Well, cost has for a long time been cited as the chief impediment to the provision of access services; indeed it has already been mentioned in this article. Our prediction for the next five years is that cost will remain the biggest barrier but may become less of an issue. We suggest that 'unbundling distribution' or à la carte viewing where the consumer demands 'any content, anywhere, anytime, on any device' will encourage a shift in subtitle commissioning from distributors to content producers.

Of course there may be copyright issues over subtitles to resolve here, but in principle this move might help simplify that problem.

A move of subtitle commissioning to production should help to re-establish the true value of subtitles and also increase the element of 'curation'.
After all subtitles are really just another form of metadata and can offer huge benefits to producers by allowing extremely powerful video searching. Using subtitle data and audio description content as precisely timed metadata can massively enhance content searches resulting in much more accurate search results and better utilisation and monetisation of archives of video content.

We would contend that video search is much more important to producers than it is to distributors, who perhaps view bundling and promotions as more effective tools to lock viewers in. Perhaps the new unbundled video world will allow market forces based on this enhanced value to drive provision of subtitles and access services.

It is clear that the term 'TV' has been redefined by viewers. Production is still largely isolated from (the requirements of) distribution, but that is changing. The role of the broadcaster/distributor or aggregator is changing and there are new consumption models such as binge viewing and social driven viewing that are arguably diminishing the effectiveness of bundled distribution. It would seem that live events will be the last bastion of traditional broadcast which would be ironic as in a sense we are turning full circle back to the early days of TV.

The article is also available in BFV online.

(IT/JP)