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BBC Subtitle Guidelines

bbc.co.uk

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Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#11

Post by crazygringo »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #8
TechBro8615 wrote: post #4

Something I've wondered... when politicians give speeches they often have some hand gesturing from a sign language interpreter standing next to them. But I've never understood why this is better than subtitles. If you're deaf then wouldn't you rather read text than follow sign language?

There's more to speaking than just the words. Sign language can convey inflection and emotion in ways that closed captions cannot. Watch someone signing: they use their face and body to convey emotions like anger, confusion, hesitation, love, joy, and the rest of the human range.

But if you're watching the politician speak, you can already see all of the emotion in their facial expression and body movement.

And that's the "original" emotion, it's not filtered through another human being. When you watch a movie without audio and with subtitles (like in a bar or on a bus), the emotions of the speakers are already awfully clear from the visuals.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#12

Post by kvm000 »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #6
TechBro8615 wrote: post #4

Something I've wondered... when politicians give speeches they often have some hand gesturing from a sign language interpreter standing next to them. But I've never understood why this is better than subtitles. If you're deaf then wouldn't you rather read text than follow sign language?

I would guess that the sign language interpreter is translating in near real time in live speeches.

Live closed captions (text only) is very common and standard. Usually those are done by an external company listening in to an audio feed, and sending the data back. It used to be done with regular POTS lines and telnet, but now it’s obviously more common to use public internet based services like EEG iCap[1]

I don’t know too much about it but I had read recently that ASL sign language can be thought of as a different language, rather than a direct equivalent to text subtitles[2].

[1] https://eegent.com/icap [2] https://imanyco.com/closed-captions-and-sign-language-not-a-...

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#13

Post by rwmj »

crazygringo wrote: post #11
sigwinch28 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more to speaking than just the words. Sign language can convey inflection and emotion in ways that closed captions cannot. Watch someone signing: they use their face and body to convey emotions like anger, confusion, hesitation, love, joy, and the rest of the human range.

But if you're watching the politician speak, you can already see all of the emotion in their facial expression and body movement. And that's the "original" emotion, it's not filtered through another human being. When you watch a movie without audio and with subtitles (like in a bar or on a bus), the emotions of the speakers are already awfully clear from the visuals.

No I think you're missing the grandparent's point. Inflection in spoken language "translates" to facial expression in sign language.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#14

Post by AstixAndBelix »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #4

Something I've wondered... when politicians give speeches they often have some hand gesturing from a sign language interpreter standing next to them. But I've never understood why this is better than subtitles. If you're deaf then wouldn't you rather read text than follow sign language?

Depends, if the speech is IRL-first and video-second then a sign language interpreter is better and cheaper than installing some sort of concoction to display live subtitles (which have to be typed by a paid steganographer).

But in any case, deaf people still have the need to practice reading their language, so removing it from everywhere except IRL conversations might be detrimental to them

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#15

Post by zinekeller »

kvm000 wrote: post #7
zinekeller wrote: post #3

One of those big difference between UK subtitling and US captioning is the use of colo(u)r or the absence of it ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/forproducts/guides/subti... ), which I believe boils down to technological differences between television systems in the '80s. While the UK-developed teletext system is also available in NTSC (in fact CBC have deployed it), the US opted out to develope a separate captio…

The older “608”[1] system in North America was much simpler but the current “708”[2] standard does support specifying colours and fonts, but in my experience in the industry nobody uses those functions at all and just uses the 708 function to embed the older 608 payload data within the newer 708 data structure. In UK/Europe the older/simpler format would be OP-42/OP-47 Teletext[3] which can be used for captions inste…

Yeah, I know of the "708" captioning system but it is surprisingly underutilized* by broadcasters. I think that they don't see any use for e.g. color?

* in terms of 708-only features, not on the pedantic "ATSC uses the 708 system"

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#16

Post by ClassyJacket »

rwmj wrote: post #9
TechBro8615 wrote: post #4

Something I've wondered... when politicians give speeches they often have some hand gesturing from a sign language interpreter standing next to them. But I've never understood why this is better than subtitles. If you're deaf then wouldn't you rather read text than follow sign language?

Since I live with someone whose first language isn't English I basically watch everything with subtitles. And live subtitling - while it's a thing - isn't that good. Try turning on subtitles for something like a news programme or live broadcast and it'll usually be quite delayed, with lots of misspellings and even outright wrong text. (This is true for premier public broadcasters in the UK such as the BBC, I don't kn…

Nobody can type fast enough on QWERTY to keep up with human speech, so the comparison is versus chorded typing on a stenography keyboard, or someone repeating the dialogue into voice dictation software which is obviously prone to errors.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#17

Post by crazygringo »

rwmj wrote: post #9
TechBro8615 wrote: post #4

Something I've wondered... when politicians give speeches they often have some hand gesturing from a sign language interpreter standing next to them. But I've never understood why this is better than subtitles. If you're deaf then wouldn't you rather read text than follow sign language?

Since I live with someone whose first language isn't English I basically watch everything with subtitles. And live subtitling - while it's a thing - isn't that good. Try turning on subtitles for something like a news programme or live broadcast and it'll usually be quite delayed, with lots of misspellings and even outright wrong text. (This is true for premier public broadcasters in the UK such as the BBC, I don't kn…

Sure, but the closed captioning is still extremely good. The typists use chorded keyboards for speed and yes they occasionally make mistakes but everything is generally quite clear and accurate.

On the other hand, signing involves actual translation, not just transcription, which is much more likely to drop meaning or introduce confusion. Translation is already hard enough, and live translation is a whole other level of difficulty.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#18

Post by rwmj »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #16
rwmj wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I live with someone whose first language isn't English I basically watch everything with subtitles. And live subtitling - while it's a thing - isn't that good. Try turning on subtitles for something like a news programme or live broadcast and it'll usually be quite delayed, with lots of misspellings and even outright wrong text. (This is true for premier public broadcasters in the UK such as the BBC, I don't kn…

Nobody can type fast enough on QWERTY to keep up with human speech, so the comparison is versus chorded typing on a stenography keyboard, or someone repeating the dialogue into voice dictation software which is obviously prone to errors.

As someone who watches TV news with subtitles on, whatever entry technique they're using, the result is not very good [in the UK, can't speak for other countries].

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#19

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #11
sigwinch28 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more to speaking than just the words. Sign language can convey inflection and emotion in ways that closed captions cannot. Watch someone signing: they use their face and body to convey emotions like anger, confusion, hesitation, love, joy, and the rest of the human range.

But if you're watching the politician speak, you can already see all of the emotion in their facial expression and body movement. And that's the "original" emotion, it's not filtered through another human being. When you watch a movie without audio and with subtitles (like in a bar or on a bus), the emotions of the speakers are already awfully clear from the visuals.

[deleted]

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#20

Post by crazygringo »

rwmj wrote: post #13
crazygringo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you're watching the politician speak, you can already see all of the emotion in their facial expression and body movement. And that's the "original" emotion, it's not filtered through another human being. When you watch a movie without audio and with subtitles (like in a bar or on a bus), the emotions of the speakers are already awfully clear from the visuals.

No I think you're missing the grandparent's point. Inflection in spoken language "translates" to facial expression in sign language.

No I'm getting that completely. But inflection in spoken language is redundant to a large degree with facial expression. If you're watching the original speaker, you're already getting that.

For example, if we ask a question, it's not just that our voice goes up at the end. Our eyes move in a certain way too, slightly more opened and our eyebrows and sometimes cheeks raise.

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