{"id":1431,"date":"2010-06-21T12:10:09","date_gmt":"2010-06-21T16:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/?p=1431"},"modified":"2010-06-21T12:10:09","modified_gmt":"2010-06-21T16:10:09","slug":"closed-captions-for-web-video-may-become-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/21\/closed-captions-for-web-video-may-become-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Closed Captions For Web Video May Become Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

An estimated 36 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss. \u00a0In 1990 a law was passed requiring all televisions to support closed captioning and in 1996 another law was passed requiring most TV shows to offer closed captions. \u00a0Now a bill is before Congress that would require any web video…that also appears on TV…to offer closed captions as well.<\/p>\n

While this law, if passed, will only affect the large television and cable networks offering duplicate TV content on the web, it brings about the question of what smaller web video publishers should do. \u00a0I’ve personally been asked more than once if I can provide closed captions on my videos.<\/p>\n

The problems with closed captions for smaller web video producers are cost…and to a lesser degree, technology. \u00a0To create closed captions, first the video must be transcribed into the written word. \u00a0Next, that text must be time coded, meaning you have to create a file that says “between the 5 and 8 second marks of the video, display these words”. \u00a0And finally, that file must must be linked to both the video and video player being used (the video player actually controls the closed captions).<\/p>\n

Since April, YouTube has automatically been adding closed caption options to any videos uploaded (English only). \u00a0But rather than relying on human transcription, they use the same voice-recognition software used for Google Voice. \u00a0While certainly better than nothing, the results are often spotty:<\/p>\n

\"blog_closedcaptionbig\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the human side of things, basic transcription services average around $1.50 per minute of transcribed audio. \u00a0Or every hour of video transcribed is going to cost around $90. \u00a0And that doesn’t include time coding the transcription, which can easily quadrupole the cost (or more). \u00a0Then you need a Flash video player that supports closed captioning or subtitles (and most don’t). \u00a0To the best of my knowledge, HTML5 video does not support closed captioning whatsoever…though it could be done through custom coding.<\/p>\n

So those are the challenges facing smaller web video producers. \u00a0And you might think “that’s too much to bother with”. \u00a0But there is another advantage for close captioning videos. \u00a0And that is search. \u00a0By having a “text” version of your video, your video instantly become far easier to index in the search engines (or within your own site). \u00a0For example, you could offer a site search that returns the exact point in a video where a user’s search terms appear.<\/p>\n

But again, it does take an investment in time, money and technology to get there. \u00a0However, it’s an investment that depending on your market, could pay off in multiple ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An estimated 36 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss. \u00a0In 1990 a law was passed requiring all televisions to support closed captioning and in 1996 another law was passed requiring most TV shows to offer closed captions. \u00a0Now a bill is before Congress that would require any web video…that also appears on TV…to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[19],"tags":[594,592,595,593],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1431"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1442,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions\/1442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}