Only recently the UK government style guide was on the front page:
A simple guide on words to avoid in government - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34104530
BBC Subtitle Guidelines
41–50 of 88 posts
Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines
#42Seems as relevant a place as any to highlight the lack of support for subtitles in BBC iPlayer on AppleTV: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/questions/accessibility/a... . I work in a related industry so fully understand how these situations come to pass, but as a user it’s frustrating to say the least.
Is it only Apple TV (and not on iPhone for example)? If it's Apple-wide I can imagine it but I'm curious what is the possible reason that BBC can't support having a separate subtitle renderer?
Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines
#43One 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…
That's fascinating, to color-code by character. For (foreign-language) subtitles that seems distracting and unnecessary, since even if you don't see the character speaking, you can recognize their voice. But for closed-captioning (for the hard of hearing), it seems like it could add clarity. Yet in the past I've watched movies with CC without sound (like on a long-distance bus) and don't remember ever having a proble…
Why would it be distracting to know who’s line it is without color coding? Why would color be the thing that distracts you; wouldn’t the actual captions be far more distracting?
As to why: it’s another datapoint to use to reconstruct what fully able people can do quickly. Sometimes captions aren’t well timed. Sometimes a lot of things happen very quickly and it’s hard to keep track. What if the camera isn’t on anyone’s face? You can probably figure it out by context, but why expend the mental energy when it can just be colored?
Just because you never had this issue (and I’m sure you did, it’s not like we remember the most mundane of details like this years later) doesn’t mean it’s not an issue.
Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines
#44Something 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?
Sign language has a different grammar. At least in British Sign Language. Simplistically, put the object of the sentence first so it's clearer what's being talked about. For someone who is profoundly deaf from birth and who can't lipread, the way we speak and write is a massive struggle. Cochlear implants before a year old are much more common now, while the brain is still more malleable, so there's maybe less and le…
Interesting perspective. I've never considered how much of reading and writing is dependent on first listening and speaking. I guess it makes sense, since the first steps to reading are "sounding out the words."
Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines
#45Something 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?
Sign language is the native language for most deaf people, while subtitling is derived from spoken language which is usually their second language. Also you can express emotions better using it, similar to how it's easier to convey them using speech than using text.
The other part of the jigsaw that a lot of people don't realise at first is that sign languages are distinct languages from spoken languages. Or to put it another way: ASL is to American English as Portuguese is to Korean.
Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines
#46Seems as relevant a place as any to highlight the lack of support for subtitles in BBC iPlayer on AppleTV: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/questions/accessibility/a... . I work in a related industry so fully understand how these situations come to pass, but as a user it’s frustrating to say the least.
Is it only Apple TV (and not on iPhone for example)? If it's Apple-wide I can imagine it but I'm curious what is the possible reason that BBC can't support having a separate subtitle renderer?
I just checked, iPad has it (and using colour coding, as that has come up elsewhere in these threads). On Apple TV a subtitle menu appears in the time bar, but it doesn't seem to do anything in either the "Automatic" or "CC" options it gives?
CC is a bit of an Americanism, perhaps it is running more directly though some Apple playback code that is more particular about subtitle formats?
I suspect the ultimate case is probably low usage statistics not making it a priority. The icon / BBC logo didn't update at the same time as the iOS version, so I suspect its a separate codebase for some reason?
Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
And you’re seeing this nuance while simultaneously reading subtitles? From a speaker at a distance? GP is correct, sign is a fully expressive language, far richer than subtitles.
Yes of course. Haven't you ever watched a movie without audio and with subtitles turned on? It's quite easy to get the nuance. People's faces are incredibly expressive.
And nobody's at a distance, the cameras are always on either a medium or close-up shot when filming politicians speaking.
Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 differen…
> I had read recently that ASL sign language can be thought of as a different language Yes, it is a different language. I've heard that ASL is rather similar to French Sign Language and quite different from BSL (British Sign Language). If someone were to translate something from English into ASL, and someone else were to translate the ASL back into English, I'd expect the result to be as different from the original a…
There's a variety of running jokes that Italian is half sign language anyways.
(Apparently derived from the fact that in Italy, there's quite a lot more non-verbal communication with hand gestures than other parts of the world)
Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines
#49Ooh, nice. I especially appreciate seeing jokes mentioned in there as a specific case. I often watch with subtitles on and it's frustrating when a joke is spoiled by bad subtitle timing.
Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines
#50Earlier 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…
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 leve…
Transcription can lose meaning, as text is not a 1:1 replacement for speech. You lose cadence, stress and emotion.