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Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

signlvideo.xyz

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Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#21

Post by Jarwain »

endisneigh wrote: post #13

What's surprising about this to me is that ASL has no written form. I found si5s but it doesn't seem incredibly mainstream. I'm curious how people who speak primarily with ASL interact on the internet. How do people who speak with ASL communicate over long distances without video, if not text? An AMA would be appreciated. An interesting idea would be processing subtitles to some sort of digital mannequin that makes a…

ASL is usually "spoken" by the deaf or hard-of-hearing right? For the most part I imagine text would satisfy most cases.

This product's offering seems to be focused on how ASL can deliver on pitch/tone/emphasis/emotion in a way transcription currently doesn't, thus "subtitles aren't sign languahe"

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#22

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

smegsicle wrote: post #14
chaps wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....what? How do you read what they wrote and come up with that question?

the part where it says "the word order is strange" is implying that they don't know how to read properly

That is because American Sign Language has a different sentence structure and grammar from English. It's a rather understandable result of a person being raised to communicate in one language "verbally" and a different language to communicate in text.

To give one example, ASL puts negation and inquisition at the end of sentences. If I want to ask, "What is this?" in ASL I would point to the thing I am curious about and then sign, "What?"

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#23

Post by klyrs »

smegsicle wrote: post #19
klyrs wrote: post #8

Sounds too good to be true, you don't mention cost anywhere. You can't scale this without paying interpreters. I dare say, you won't have a 48-hour turnaround on movie-length content either, without a low bar for quality.

just use ai!

Yes that's an extremely low bar

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#24

Post by mcdonje »

>You are excluding more than 700 million people from your content.

I'm sorry, but that is not a believable stat. You mean to tell me close to 1/10 of the planet is deaf and speaks ASL and doesn't read a written language?

I'm all for the project. I'm 100% in favor of increasing accessibility. I just don't believe that stat.

Are you sure it isn't 700k? That'd be more reasonable considering Wikipedia says a 1972 survey estimated the signing population as between 250k and 500k.

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#26

Post by sophacles »

Robtech23 wrote: post #2

This looks like a good idea. What is the difference between sign language and subtitles?

Subtitles (like sms or twitter) don't convey tone very well, so in a classic voice over just having the subtitles makes it hard to convey things like sarcasm or innuendo or emphasis or emotion. Sign language has ways to convey all of this.

Think about this sentence:

That's cool.

It's one of those sentences that exists only to convey a tone. Depending on tone it can mean:

* that is in fact cool

* that is in fact NOT cool

* i acknowledge that you have said something

* i agree to your suggestion

and plenty more in contexts where you only know which it means because you can hear the tone of the person.

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#27

Post by smegsicle »

> [if you don't use our product] You are excluding more than 700 million people from your content

i assume this is coming from a place where all abilities and disabilities are equal and any kind of value judgement is immoral, so maybe you could find it useful to know that in the real world, 700 million deaf people might find it offensive that you assume they are illiterate

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#29

Post by [deleted] »

endisneigh wrote: post #13

What's surprising about this to me is that ASL has no written form. I found si5s but it doesn't seem incredibly mainstream. I'm curious how people who speak primarily with ASL interact on the internet. How do people who speak with ASL communicate over long distances without video, if not text? An AMA would be appreciated. An interesting idea would be processing subtitles to some sort of digital mannequin that makes a…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#30

Post by legitster »

A neat service. But from their site:

> NO emotions

> NO accent

> NO gestures

> NO native language

This is largely counterproductive. If you are watching something visual, all of the emotions and gestures you need are already there in the video or the original presenter. The only niche this could fill are narration-driven documentaries.

With subtitles you can also do things like spell-check them or suggest edits. If a third party service sends back poor quality signing, it seems like quality control would be just as much work if not more than doing the signing yourself.

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