Applies To: Everyone, especially if you have ever wanted to know how to turn Subtitles on on a YouTube video…
Hello!
You probably didn’t see it (not many people did) but we tried doing a TV advert a few years ago! One of the things we did was to upload it to YouTube, and this is where I learnt something new…
In fact I learnt two new things! The second one is probably the most useful in every day life, but I thought the first one might be of interest…
Thing 1 (Auto-generated Subtitles on YouTube)
When you upload a video to YouTube it automatically adds subtitles, it does this by listening to the video and trying to understand the words being said.
Our advert had a fairly easy to understand voice over and the Auto-generated subtitles were fairly good, there were a couple of (fairly important) errors.
See if you can spot my favourite errors before I fixed them.
Before: “Are you struggling to get to grips with your i paddle or Android tablet”
After: “Are you struggling to get to grips with your iPad or Android tablet?”
Before: “Call Oh one 229 777 60 six or visit…”
After: “Call 01229 777606 or visit…”
As you can see, it’s always worth checking anything auto-generated.
Thing 2 (Moving Subtitles on the video)
I asked Julie in the office to check my changes, and that they lined up with the words as they were being spoken. After a couple of tweaks we were happy, apart from…
Julie: “Mike, can we move the subtitles so they don’t cover the phone number on the video?”
Mike: “I don’t know, let me check”
Mike: “Yes, but it’s complicated” (conversation as I remember it 😉 )
And this is where I stopped because I was mega busy with stuff! But then I decided to do a little more research and this is the bit I learnt…
..YOU can move the subtitles yourself!
When you watch a YouTube video with subtitles on you can click and drag the subtitles around on the screen! Give it a try on this, totally picked at random, video.
Turning Subtitles (or Captions as YouTube call it) on
When watching a YouTube video which has captions available you can turn them on by clicking this button. Then click the same button to turn them off again.
You can move them by clicking and dragging the subtitle text around.
Advanced Subtitle Settings
Click the Cog icon, then Subtitles, then options.
Then you get all sorts of fun options such as changing the colour to say yellow!
And now you have yellow subtitles, moved up out of the way of other text on the screen!
And there you are! Master of Subtitles!
Mike 🙂
P.S It’s worth noting that not all our videos on YouTube will have subtitles and those which do we may not have corrected any auto-generated errors. If you spot any which are wrong / funny let us know!
P.P.S This is an old advert, so the website address on the video doesn’t work any more. If you’re interested in the books and would like to see an infopack, please email us at [email protected] and we’ll get one sent out to you.
UPDATE: YouTube announces they have auto-captioned One billion captioned videos, read more here.
March 4, 2017 at 12:38 pm
Ref 2.2.17. tablet tells us to tune into iTunes we have tried all it tells us to do plus, we are fully charged up having plugged into plug and tablet, but we seem to be getting nowhere, we must be doing something wrong, have tried pressing the Home buttton and the On button as instructed, but Nothing!, and ideas. Maurice.
March 6, 2017 at 12:20 pm
Humm all very odd!
What happens if you press and hold the power button? Does it flash up a logo then die or just do nothing?
If it doesn’t start up when you press and hold the button then I would pop into a local phone shop and ask them to take a look as it could be something which does need it to be returned. So sorry I am unable to help!
Mike 🙂
February 2, 2017 at 9:44 am
We have both Tablet and Ipad and both are DEAD! Do we have to go back to the manufacturers to get them to restart. We must have done something, ptressed the wrong button and switched the things off in some manner, don’t know how, but feel it is of our doing, otherwise they both lie thrown down somewhere in disgust as we have no way of getting eith of them to work.
Maurice.
February 2, 2017 at 11:24 am
Hi Maurice
Oh dear, this does not sound good at all, and to anyone reading along I would not recommend throwing tablets down in disgust 😉 !
OK I think the first thing I would try would be to plug them into a charger. If you can find to original charger (plug) and cable which came with each tablet this will help as some cheap replacements don’t work properly. Make sure the charger is on and the cable is plugged in at both ends (one into the charger and one into the tablet) fully. If this doesn’t work you can try and charge it slowly from a computer but let’s try the plug first.
Leave plugged in over night so they have a good amount of time to charge. then press and hold the power button, hopefully this should power them on.
If not let me know what happens (nothing, a flash of a symbol on the screen, an error message?)
Let me know how you get on
Mike 🙂
P.S A note about Vista you might want to read my article on Windows Vista here https://www.pcinnercircle.co.uk/index.php/2017/01/this-is-for-your-friend-if-they-use-windows-vista/
January 30, 2017 at 2:13 pm
Interesting to read about auto generated subtitles. I presume the dvd’s about android tablets were subtitled in this way as they too are really Amusing!
January 18, 2017 at 1:15 pm
Thanks for that info Mike, I am deaf and need subtitles to watch YouTube. Handy to know they can moved around. Pity it is not possible to do the same with TV where, sometimes, subtitles are placed on top of other subtitles/important info.
I’m not a fan of auto generated subtitles though, quite a lot of subtitled You Tube videos (inc the videos with W10) don’t make any sense. On TV most of the programmes are OK but live TV (like the News and Weather Forecasts) are sometimes quite hilarious…eg. “bricks in the clouds” (breaks) and some are too difficult to translate! Thankfully most DVD’s these days are well subtitled.
Jeanne
January 19, 2017 at 9:25 am
Hi Jeanne
Really glad you found my post helpful.
I will certainly pass on the fact that some subtitles on our W10 videos are not quite right (or as you say “don’t make any sense”) and see if there is anything we can do to at least make them better.
As for the weather forecast, I am now worried by falling bricks!
Mike 🙂