New Accessibility Feature for ScreenCastsOnline
Friday, September 2, 2011 at 12:32PM Huge, huge week for ScreenCastsOnline.
OK, perhaps that may be overstating it, but I’m so pleased to announce the launch of full English subtitles included with all future shows, starting with SCO0311 - Using Mail in Lion
Primarily included as an accessibility feature, subtitles should assist our hard of hearing viewers and obviously our deaf viewers, but I’m also hoping they may help non-english speaking viewers too.
If I’m honest, I’m also hoping it may widen the potential ScreenCastsOnline audience to a new group of people that may not have otherwise been able to access the content, so I’m not being solely altruistic. Even so, I feel really pleased that I’ve been able to introduce the subtitles and hope as many people benefit from them as possible.
I've used an external transcription service to create the plain text file and then various applications to apply the timecode and create the captions. Quicktime supports "Soft Subtitles" so I can embed the subtitle track within the Quicktime file itself, as well as the existing Chapter track. The subtitles work great using iTunes and QuickTime 7 player but it looks like support using QuickTime X player is not fully functional. I hope Apple get around to fixing that soon!
Of course, the logical extension of this is the inclusion of foreign language subtitles, but on the weekly production cycle (and the humongous expense), I don’t think that would be feasible on a regular basis... we’ll see!
Although this week's show is a member's only show, seeing as you're reading this on my blog, I'll include a link to a sample version of this week's show, so you can download and have a play - just right click on this Sample Version with Subtitles and download the linked file.
Once you've downloaded the file, open it in iTunes and use Controls > Audio & Subtitles to switch on the English Subtitles. As the first section explains, it's actually better to play in QuickTime 7 as you can slow down playback, as well as adjusting the pitch and volume of the audio track. Just in case you find it difficult to follow the subtitles - I really need to learn to speak more slowly!
Please feel free to circulate the link to anyone who may be interested or who may find it useful.
Would love any feedback, either here on the blog or via email to screencastsonline@gmail.com
Reader Comments (3)
Hey, This is great! I'm moderately deaf in one ear and severely so in the other and struggle with accents unless I can lip-read. I already have a subscription, but this will make it much more valuable. Not. that you have a heavy accent, but as my deafness has progressed, I've lost the ability to process many accents by sound alone.
Thanks
Bill
At the forefront of technology as usual Don. And, now we'll all know it's not called Screencasts On Lion
It seems to me that your schedule over the past year has become all but unwieldy, resulting in reduced weekly features and even several skipped features during the year. If this is true, I'd rather you concentrate on show topics and content quality (as you do now) and not get even more bogged down with subtitles. In other words, keep you eye on the ball. Thank you, Bill Calter