Captioning and translation for VOD
First, let us break down this integral question in the age of virtual events, OTT, live-streaming, and hybrid event formats. Captioning has now become like the feather in your streaming aspirations that you must wear in your event cap. If you don’t caption your event, you risk being left way behind when it comes to comprehensibility, inclusivity, and accessibility of your content to diverse audiences.
Captioning workflows have existed since the early ‘80s and have, over the years, matured to an extent where, today, everything from live news, sports broadcasts, award ceremonies, and other prominent events are seamlessly captioned and broadcast not only for the benefit of hard-of-hearing or speech-impaired audiences but also to a wider audience across the world that can access these programs thanks to the widespread use of the Internet.
Given the ubiquitous application of this plug-and-play feature on streaming your event, and given its by-now universal appeal, how would you go about choosing a VOD captioning and translation partner? SyncWords gives you the lowdown.
6 Key Captioning Aspects
Here are the six aspects that must feature in the suite of solutions of your VOD captioning service.
- List of source languages: A wider range of supported input languages means a greater coverage of the needs of non-English speaking audiences, the authenticity of the information provided, and a smoother passing of the message/ subject/ topic in question. For pre-recorded videos, in addition to English, SyncWords offers ten languages as input or source languages – Spanish, German, French, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Tagalog, Thai, and Arabic.
- List of target languages: Leveraging its proprietary Sync technology, SyncWords makes it possible to do quality translations in an unprecedented 100+ languages, naturally and organically. This has the added benefit of comprehensibility to diverse audiences that can consume your content beyond the limitations of the input language. And in certain cases, it can even enable the preservation of rare languages by increasing the number of content available in them, thus ensuring easy access to the information for interested parties.
- Range of services: Video-on-Demand usually adds automatic transcription using Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). SyncWords recognizes ASR’s limitations when it comes to the accuracy of captions, and offers human transcription services as well, with even same-day turnarounds. Being it synchronous communication (live) or asynchronous communication (pre-recorded), SyncWords stands head and shoulders above in the field of captioning and subtitling. Now, offering human translations and AI dubbing or voice-overs for VOD as early-bird access to customers, SyncWords brings the world of simultaneous translations to the next level in a cost- and time-effective manner.
- Functionality and UX of the Caption and Dubbing Editor: SyncWords provides side-by-side editing UX-friendly capabilities so that when working on your video material you can compare the source with the target result, and make relevant edits if necessary. This can be done individually or in a collaborative way, where your team members leave comments and suggestions. Empowered by multiple auto-features, there are also 30+ editing settings you can go to the full extent of captioning and translation production, be it text or voice.
- Video-supported Subtitling formats and guidelines: SyncWords generates the most popular formats related to broadcast, web, and OTT delivery. That includes formats like SCC, SRT, VTT & IMSC, as well a long list of others so that you feel free in your actions, regardless of an immediate need or requirement.
- Security: There is no compromise when it comes to security. Remote access into the system is highly restricted and requires multi-factor authentication. As per data, the media is compressed and unavailable to export. All cloud auto-save and backups are done on secure servers located in different parts of the world. Also, whenever a human element is part of the service, SyncWords assures you of the enhanced protection of your confidential information by performing multiple background checks and NDA signing.
Core Tenets of Inclusivity and Accessibility
As a one-stop solution for captioning and translation services for all types of videos, SyncWords goes above and beyond the six aspects as listed above. Added to its innovation mindset is its organizational focus on inclusivity and accessibility.
Ash Shah, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder of SyncWords, wrote about Inclusion and Accessibility in organizations in this blog post. He made a point about captioning and multilingual translations being a must for all types of content - live meetings and events, pre-recorded videos - to become inclusive and accessible.
To Wrap Up
Before you choose your VOD captioning provider, ask yourself this. Will this captioning service cover the discussed six core aspects? Can this captioning provider offer all six aspects as a bundle service? Does the captioning provider understand all specifics of Video-on-Demand, OTT, events, and live-streaming platforms? Can it ensure an end-to-end solution that works seamlessly across different technologies? Will they step up, go above and beyond with their services and technologies? Above all, will they partner well with you and understand your business needs?
You know what? Let’s make it simple for you. Test and have SyncWords’ experience with us. Because as an end-to-end captioning, subtitling, and translation service, we have all this covered, and more.
