

Enhancing the viewer experience: Subtitles provide a certain level of comfort to users, whether they speak another language, have hearing difficulties, or simply like having them available.Īlthough subtitling clearly has great benefits, creating the text can be challenging, especially if you do not have the time, budget, or skills required to generate quality subtitles.This helps in situations in which they want to view the video, but need the sound to be turned off. Keeping viewers engaged: Viewers who fluently speak the source language are selecting the subtitle option so they can read the text while watching a video.Generating text for search engine optimization (SEO): Subtitles help videos reach higher ranking online because of the inclusion of keywords.Ensuring that international viewers can find the video: The translated text in subtitles helps viewers locate videos as they conduct queries.Allowing viewers to watch videos made in other languages: Without subtitles, countless potential customers would be omitted from a company’s messaging radar.The advantages of using subtitles include: As such, businesses are realizing that subtitles are an essential part of their video production. Although they are still utilized for that reason, they have become mainstream among most viewers. Filmmakers relied on these subtitles to provide context to what viewers were watching.Īs audio became part of television shows and film, subtitles grew into a necessary means for people who had hearing difficulties. Subtitles Matter to ViewersĪlthough they were used differently than they are today, subtitles can be traced back to the early 1900s, when they were added to silent films to help keep viewers engaged. Fortunately, automatic speech recognition (ASR) and machine translation are transforming how subtitles are produced, making them much easier to create.

While subtitles have become an essential part of videos and real-time programming, the process of adding them to a video can be tedious.

After all, they can watch the videos with the sound turned off, and the experience is not hindered by language barriers. Whether they are watching trending videos on TikTok, a “how-to” video on YouTube, or a television show, they are likely viewing several videos per day.Īs videos continue to be generated and shared on phones, tablets, and laptops, viewers are appreciating the flexibility that subtitles offer them. Learn more about Microsoft Teams Premium here.For many people, watching videos has become part of their daily lives.

After the preview period, to use live translation for captions, meeting organizers will need the Teams Premium offering. Live translation for captions is temporarily available as a preview for all Microsoft Teams customers. Adding translation to live captions allows for more engaging, inclusive, and productive meetings. Live translation for captions is ideal in meetings with multi-lingual users and audiences as it supports one spoken language and multiple displayed text (subtitle) languages. Using Microsoft Speech Translation technology powered by Azure Cognitive Services, live translation for captions in Teams supports 40 spoken languages. Now meeting participants can read the live captions translated to their language of preference. With this new feature, users can fully participate in meetings where the spoken language(s) may not be familiar or their most comfortable language to understand. We’re excited to announce the availability of live translation for captions.
