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BBC Subtitle Guidelines

bbc.co.uk

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Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#61

Post by tshaddox »

crazygringo wrote: post #17
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…

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…

But it's being done by professional translators, right? That might be more expensive than having a human do live subtitle transcription, but I bet it's not a huge difference especially relative to the production costs of any broadcast to a large audience, and based on the live subtitles I've seen (mostly on national sports and news broadcasts, so I don't know if that's automated or done by a human) it's hard imagine the quality achieved by professional signers wouldn't be significantly better.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#62

Post by tshaddox »

crazygringo wrote: post #20
rwmj wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But inflection in spoken language is redundant to a large degree with facial expression.

I don't know how you'd possibly attempt to objectively quantify that degree, but my guess is that you're understating it. The entire deaf community is probably not mistaken about which means of communication are the most effective for them.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#63

Post by nmstoker »

matthewbarras wrote: post #60
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…

We have subtitles on all the time for my little boy and can attest that the BBC is very poor - even on iPlayer. Interesting side note: if ever subtitles are turned off, or we are watching TV elsewhere, me and my wife can't 'hear' well. Even if the volume is up. Like we've untrained our ability...

Totally agree, the "live" subtitling on BBC is remarkably bad.

It's way worse than even using a cheap computer with open source solutions - it's strange no one at the BBC decides to resolve this as it would be easy and could easily give the public a far better result. Even if you took a hit on the most obscure words, off the shelf would outperform the current process by a country mile.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#64

Post by artandtechnic »

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 Closed Captioning System for the Deaf - which became known as "608" - was always capable of displaying captions in color.* However, this faculty was largely underutilized, due to a variety of historical / technical reasons.**

* Indeed, the first test broadcasts from 1979 included color.

** This is due to the design of the original 1980 "decoder," which only 'worked well' for color when installed inside an NTSC television. For the external adapters, grayscale instead of color was displayed. The only way to view color captions in color back in 1980/1981 was with a TeleCaption TV - and there was only one model ever made.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#65

Post by retrac »

lazyeye wrote: post #59
retrac wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sign languages are not coded speech. They are languages with their own grammar and vocabulary. For example, American SL is descended from Old French Sign Language and is partially understandable by French SL speakers today, while British SL is completely different, not in the same language family. It is even possible to write sign language. it is done like with spoken language. The most basic components, akin to phon…

This has to be a generational thing. There is no way a deaf person growing up now is not going to be using the internet.

Partial literacy is all you need for YouTube or video calls. Plenty of hearing people can read well enough for that too, or to find what they need at the store, but can't read well enough to e.g. summarize the main points of a newspaper story. I've seen estimates that something like 20 - 40% of Americans are functionally illiterate in that way. For the Deaf, it is even higher.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#66

Post by fiestajetsam »

zinekeller wrote: post #42
camyule wrote: post #37

Seems 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?

Apple TV and AirPlay doesn't support "out-of-band" of subtitles into playback or the use of a separate subtitle renderer, the subtitles have to be linked in the HLS manifest. For a lot of OTT platforms, subtitles are processed and handled separately from AV media, so this is difficult to fix. Some platforms work around this by doing manifest manipulation either server or device side, both have pitfalls.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#67

Post by dbbk »

payamb wrote: post #55
fredoralive wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

iPlayer on TV (across all platforms) is a generic web application, topped with a custom wrapper app (think webview) for each platform, responsible to hook platform’s native APIs to Web/JS APIs. I’m guessing there are some complications hooking Apple TV’s native subtitles APIs to relevant web APIs, and low usage statistics doesn’t help prioritising fixing the issue. Although the rumour is that they are working on a co…

For most platforms this is true, but not Apple TV. I don't think they even allow it. iPlayer is definitely native code.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#68

Post by fredoralive »

dbbk wrote: post #67
payamb wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPlayer on TV (across all platforms) is a generic web application, topped with a custom wrapper app (think webview) for each platform, responsible to hook platform’s native APIs to Web/JS APIs. I’m guessing there are some complications hooking Apple TV’s native subtitles APIs to relevant web APIs, and low usage statistics doesn’t help prioritising fixing the issue. Although the rumour is that they are working on a co…

For most platforms this is true, but not Apple TV. I don't think they even allow it. iPlayer is definitely native code.

I think Apple must allow it, either that or Google have tried really hard to capture in native code the "shitty non-native web app" feel with the YouTube app. But the iPlayer app does feel fairly native.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#69

Post by marbletiles »

crazygringo wrote: post #47
marbletiles wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a deeply strange line of thought to follow. Do you think broadcasters would go to the trouble and expense if there was no value for people in it?

If subtitles were equal value or even “good enough”, they’d be used exclusively. That they aren’t should tell you something, and you repeatedly protesting that you are unable to comprehend the value doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Re: BBC Subtitle Guidelines

#70

Post by amelius »

retrac wrote: post #58
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?

Sign languages are not coded speech. They are languages with their own grammar and vocabulary. For example, American SL is descended from Old French Sign Language and is partially understandable by French SL speakers today, while British SL is completely different, not in the same language family. It is even possible to write sign language. it is done like with spoken language. The most basic components, akin to phon…

Still, I suppose that many people still want the original phrasing, not a translation where subtleties might get lost.
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