Want to reach out to a broader audience?
This is the perfect time to include Chinese subtitling (sometimes called captioning) services to your localization strategies.
As video consumption is becoming a norm among netizens these days, adding closed captions for viewers is a convenient way for those who have a hearing loss, so they can read and understand what’s on the audio and videos.
Some viewers prefer to have both video and captions, whether watching a movie, playing a game, or studying a video training material.
READ MORE >> 4 Important Elements to Check on a Chinese Video Translation Project
Closed caption is vital for the deaf and hard of hearing community, too. Some countries have laws requiring media publishers to include closed captions and also open captions for TV viewers. However, closed captions are also beneficial for individuals who are learning a language like Chinese via reading the transcripts of the audio.
How does closed caption affect your exposure? China has a 73.9% penetration rate of online video use as of this writing. Most netizens watch videos. You may want to take a look at this viral video.
This became viral in China and has won the hearts of many customers.
This could be you if you do the right thing, especially if you integrate Chinese subtitles.
What’s Closed Captioning?
Closed captioning is the process of showing the texts on a television or video screen. The texts are typically in the original source language, which is a transcript of the audio of the video while it plays.
Closed captions are only displayed upon the viewer’s control. He can activate the deactivate them via the features of the remote control or settings of a video (e.g., YouTube has an option (CC) that prompts the display of “Subtitles/Captions).
\In a nutshell, if you add closed captioning to your videos, the viewers can switch them on or off. Whether they have learning disabilities, they have a noisy environment in the background, or they would like to understand the jargon or terms spoken, closed captions in Chinese can help them follow through the video’s content as they read the texts.
How Useful is Closed Captioning in Chinese Videos?
Chinese netizens are one of the biggest consumers of online videos. But closed captioning isn’t just limited to the deaf and hard of hearing community.
Videos these days are also used when training employees, organization’s communication, studying e-learning courses online, video marketing, social media, and e-commerce videos.
E-learning in the corporate environment will help global companies be useful in training employees. You want to make sure that the audio and video are in sync with the captions when delivering a message or teaching a course. A closed caption includes non-speech elements like noises in the background or speaker’s identification.
Sometimes, closed captioning is used interchangeably with subtitling. But there are differences between the two. In subtitling, the non-speech elements aren’t included. It’s for those viewers who can hear and don’t have learning disabilities.
Why Captioning Quality Matters?
Closed caption services should be handled by professional linguists, translators, and multimedia specialists to ensure that the audio of the video is in sync with what the texts are displayed on the screen.
If you switch on captions on a video and compare the texts to what the speaker is saying, you will see the discrepancies if the publishers don’t take note of the details. Some captions are unreadable or don’t make sense. And that can be frustrating for the deaf and hard of learning communities.
Closed captioning is useless when they are inaccurate as their primary function is to display in texts for those who have hearing loss.
Need help in closed captioning services for your videos and games? Let us know by filling the form below.
