More Than Just Words (Subtitles Are A Good Thing)

byTwack

2.2K followers

4 years ago

Good mooning everyone. If I say it like that then it reminds me of the gendarme from 'Allo Allo', the sitcom ? No ? OK, it's looses a lot in translation and there's no point in me trying to explain, the moment has gone, we'll move on.

More of a newsletter this morning (or 'moaning', now do you get it ?) I just needed to flex a little as I've been doing the whole concentration frown for a few days.

Last night I gave myself a little break at around 10pm and thought I'd see if there was anything worth watching on Netflix. I found a film that intrigued, as a well written 'blurb' or synopsis can. Started to play it and then got hat sinking feeling you get when you have an inkling that all is not well. It was going to need sub-titles. Now, at this point I could have surfed away and found something else but I was in need of stimulation. I persevered and turned on the captions. It's interesting how quickly we forget that we're reading the words. I was actually engrossed, not least by the fact that the language was Spanish. It truly is a beautiful to listen to.

I wondered if there were any benefits to watching a film with sub-titles, I mean, we are mutli-tasking by watching and reading, I know we normally 'listen' but isn't that slightly easier, as long as the words are clear then it's pretty much automatic. I searched the question and behold I was not the first to ask it, though there didn't seem to be a factual based answer until I found this.

• 80% of people who used closed captions had no hearing loss.
• 80% of people who used closed captions were not hearing impaired.
• 70% of respondents said closed captions improved comprehension.
• Most people were satisfied with prerecorded closed captions.
• Most people were dissatisfied with live close caption service.

This was from an 'in depth' survey by the BBC. Still, if you can get your head round it then you open up a whole other world of cinematographic genius. Wait, here's an added bit of value that has to do with all you budding video masters.

"Why Companies Should Love Captions

When people are able to comprehend your content you will increase user engagement and increase the likelihood they will watch the entire video. Here is what adding captions can do:

• 40% more time spent watching video.
• 80% more people watch video to completion vs 40% for videos without.
• Viewers have higher likelihood of positive reaction.
• Making videos accessible to English for 2nd language (ESL) viewers.
• Creating searchable video content.
• Increase student engagement through an interactive experience.
• Using keywords improve content discovery for better learning outcomes."

Who knew ? I didn't, then again I haven't done any videos yet. When I do, I'll be sure to add subtitles. Well, this took me in another direction.

Funnel work is still ongoing. Well, it's not work as yet, I'm just watching video and making notes. Maybe this post came about because one of yesterdays videos was about videos. I won't go in to any of it here but there'a a lot going on in that arena. Long gone are the days of switching on your web cam for 10 minutes and then just uploading it. I mean, it's like a visual blog post, with SEO, tags, descriptions, keywords, links, URL'S and probably more stuff. Apparently this is all needed because YouTube is a search engine and it's owned by Google.

Why did I not know that ? Maybe I did and forgot, that happens quite a bit. 'More then just words' was meant to be about something entirely different, still I hope you've found this informative and maybe a little useful.

Spectacular days are required by all, as it is the law.