Entries By meagan palatino
Using Closed Captions for Online Video
by Meagan Palatino on February 13, 2012
Web video accessibility is a broad term that refers to making videos usable for all types of viewers. Traditionally, it refers to those with impairments, but more recently the definition has broadened. At LongTail Video, we feel strongly about creating the means of equal access to online video content. By building products that support features such as multi-language video captions, we aim to increase viewer accessibility. Though there are many pieces to making a video fully accessible, in this post we focus the discussion on closed captions.
Understanding Video Captions
Video captions are very similar to subtitles. The major difference is that captions describe all of the relevant audio detected in the video, whereas subtitles focus solely on the words spoken in the film. For example, if a phone is ringing in the background a caption will display something like, "the phone is ringing", and a subtitle will display nothing. Captions are "closed" when a user can toggle the captions on/off during video playback. Captions are "open" when they are burned directly into the video, which means they are displayed 100% of the time. Making sure your captions are closed is important - it allows you to support all types of users with the same piece of media, increasing both accessibility & inclusiveness.
The Current State of Video Captions
Captions have conventionally existed for television, but only more recently have been introduced into online video. Although The World Wide Web consortium (W3C) has established a set of guidelines known as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that provide a standardized and definitive set of rules for how to develop accessible online content, online video accessibility federal regulations are still in their infancy.
Since 2010, American accessibility advocates have urged Congress to modify an existing bill that would mandate captions for any online video that has also appeared on TV. Just last month, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released their final rules on closed captioning for IP-delivered video programming. Though only a small step towards a more universal regulation, it applies to all full-length video television programming in the United States, previously distributed with closed captions.
As closed-captioning of online video programming emerges, speed of adoption is key. Whitehouse.gov is an early adopter who uses the JW Player with our Captions Plugin to display their cataloged live broadcasting footage.
Hulu's CTO, Eric Feng quotes that “users send us feedback about closed captions more often than almost any other feature, so what started as a small side project has turned into a very important part of our user experience...”.
Video Captioning Tools
In our own product development at LongTail Video, we see similar requests, and have recently pushed two product updates for online video captioning:
- Bits on the Run Video Captioning - we now allow users to upload captions in the SRT and DFXP formats to the Bits on the Run Dashboard. Users can then publish their videos with closed captions for accessibility and Section 508 compliance. In addition, videos can now be published with multiple subtitle tracks, for viewers language selection.
- JW Player Captions Plugin for HTML5 - we recently updated our Captions Plugin to support both Flash and HTML5 mode. This means closed captions will now appear in both the Flash and HTML5 rendering mode for videos embedded with the Captions Plugin.
Aligning with the trends in industry, the tools in which closed captions are created have improved as well. Services such as Subtitle Workshop and Jubler are offline tools used to edit text-based subtitles, or in our case, closed captions. Online services that we recommend are Universal Subtitle and our partner, dotSUB.
Added Benefits of Video Captioning
What video publishers may not yet realize is that there is more to captioning videos than simply increasing accessibility among the hearing-impaired. In fact, there are quite a few side benefits such as:
- Mobile video - when users watch mobile video, sound is not always available, or loud enough.
- Language barriers - for non-native-language viewers, closed captions make it easier to follow the video.
- Search engine indexing - as quoted by Google: “When you start adding text to all of your videos, search is aided tremendously.” Textual descriptions of your video footage increase the accuracy of the content indexing.
- In-video search - with your text indexed, it becomes easy to implement an in-video search which allows a user to jump directly to a particular section within the video. Check out Hulu's implementation of their captions search feature.
As video captioning enters the HTML5 market, and standards are developed around the , captions will become even easier to publish.
With big names in video like Hulu and YouTube (where captions are included on all English-language videos uploaded after April 2010), putting emphasis on closed captions, we can be certain that the future will indeed be captioned. We encourage you, as a video publisher, to start experimenting with video captioning and create a workflow where closed captioning is a regular part of your video publishing process.
Social Sharing - Publish Your Videos to Facebook, Twitter & YouTube
by Meagan Palatino on September 25, 2011
Video shared within your social networks - you've seen it, you've watched it, you've probably even Liked it. Online video sharing is becoming increasingly popular among social media users, consistent with the upward trend of overall online social media usage. Social media now accounts for 22.5% of the time that that Americans spend online. These sites are where users are going to look for news, entertainment, and social engagement. In this post, we discuss why and how you should leverage Facebook, Twitter & YouTube for distributing your videos.
Why Publish my Videos to Social Media Sites?
We've grown accustomed to a culture where sharing content is second nature, social media is now an established part of the web, and video is undeniably more engaging. The content we share is often a personalized reflection of the publisher. It allows for a more intimate connection with the person, the product, or the goals of the business.
Sharing video is easy and effective
Take Facebook for example, which is currently dominating the social media scene. In fact, usage statistics for Facebook are still growing. These are some exciting trends, and provide reason to believe that they align with the numbers for online video sharing within Facebook.
Video shared on Facebook performs better than video watched elsewhere - that is, Facebook users are more engaged and tend to watch more (if not all) of the video clip. Back in April 2011, we published a blogpost on the ease of getting your videos on Facebook. One of the more exciting Facebook features introduced this year was the ability for third parties to publish & playback video content directly within their Newsfeed, allowing individuals to watch videos from all over the Internet without ever leaving Facebook. As a result, Facebook drives 11.8% of all referred video traffic to media companies.
Friends trust what friends recommend
Its no surprise that there is a direct relationship between social media referrals & viewer engagement rates. Friends, or niche online communities statistically have similar interests, and they trust each other. Social networks give users access to particular & pertinent content that they may not find elsewhere. Users give more weight to content suggested by their friends. This is the essence of viral video marketing - create good content, and it spreads by word of [virtual] mouth.
This trend holds consistent within Twitter. As a Twitter user, you've chosen to follow specific "tweeters", and are more apt to trust the links they post. If someone you follow pushes the content, its probably both relevant and interesting. Unlike Facebook users that expect to stay within the platform, Twitter users are already comfortable with clicking through to watch recommended content. This often works to video publishers benefits, in that it sends traffic directly to the source (i.e. your main site or product page).
Video stays online, forever
Just like online content, online videos are indexed by google and over time draw traffic to your site. YouTube.com has become the largest repository of online public video, much of it user-generated content. YouTube videos are watched more frequently and stay popular longer.
YouTube.com is not only the world's biggest video portal (and free TV), it is also the world's most popular video search engine, following the footsteps of its parent company, Google. According to their 2010 Stats, each minute 48 hours of video are uploaded, and over 3 billion videos are viewed every day. Since 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the U.S, its a great tool for expanding your content's reach. To make it even more accessible, it has a variety of specific applications for direct integrations with a wide range of devices, from smartphones to settop boxes and connected TV's.
What Actions Should I Take Next?
As you begin to build your video presence across key social media tools, we offer a few tips for getting started with each:
- Twitter - When posting on twitter, we recommend using a URL shortener for the full video URL. This allows you to focus your message on describing the content, and add in any desired external tracking links. The beauty of Twitter exists within its "retweet" functionality. Retweets from your followers help your content gain popularity across borders. Word travels in seconds from the US to China. In the end, its impossible to track who is at the receiving end of the content you post.
- Facebook - Publishing video to Facebook is simple. You can either publish the video URL directly, or embed it on a website with a customized JW Player (through the use of opengraph to share video online). If you prefer the latter, click here for implementation instructions.
- YouTube - YouTube allows you to create a real video presence. You can brand your channel and create a social media landing page. By using extensive titles, tags, and descriptions your video content will be better indexed by their search engine. Our own online video platform, Bits on the Run, offers an easy way to upload directly to YouTube, occurring simultaneously with your upload to the platform. Read our Upload to YouTube Tutorial for more information.
- From Your Site - The JW Player offers a variety of social media plugins that publish your video content directly to social media sites. We recommend starting with the Sharing Plugin. This plugin supports several sharing options: video embed code, video URL, and direct posts to Facebook or Twitter.
Conclusion
Whether your ultimate goal is producing video as core marketing material for your business, or you are an individual looking to create an online presence for yourself, social media will help you. It helps spread your name, your cause, and your goals. It brings viewers to your site, creates engagement around your content, and certainly gives you and your team instant feedback.