Yesterday YouTube began automatically captioning new video uploads. That means viewers now have the option of reading what is being said in a video, while it plays (much like subtitles).
Right now, YouTube is only captioning new video uploads where the audio contains English language. And the transcription is done using Google’s voice recognition software. This is the same software Google uses to transcribe voice messages in Google Voice. If you use Google Voice, you know how inaccurate this voice recognition software can be…and it will be the same with videos on YouTube. But as Google software engineer Ken Harrenstien said “…it’s better than nothing”.
If you want to try the new auto captioning service out for yourself, you’ll need to upload a new video to YouTube. Then click on the closed-captioning icon in the player to watch the video with captions.
Even if it takes time to perfect, this is an important first step by YouTube in helping to make web video more accessible.
I can see that it depends on the clarity of the voice in the video. If it’s of low quality then the transcription will not be perfect. I’ve seen videos with decent transcription. But again it does not work perfectly all the time. There is still room for improvement.