A Full Guide to Subtitles on YouTube

What are Subtitles on YouTube?

Subtitles are onscreen text which displays in the lower thirds section of a video. Subtitles serve as a transcription of the dialogue within that video. The dialogue text displays in-sync with the video speech. Subtitles are typically designed for either Deaf and Hard of Hearing viewers or for foreign audiences looking for a translation of audio content.

Who watches subtitles on YouTube and other online channels?

Whilst subtitles were created to enhance the viewing experiences of foreign and hard of hearing viewers, as remote video watching has grown in popularity, younger generations are increasingly using subtitles on a daily basis. Many watch online content on mute while they are out-and-about, or in family settings, they might use subtitles to turn down the volume as friends and families in the local vicinity are all watching something different. 

Options for Adding Subtitles to YouTube?

There are a number of options for adding subtitles to YouTube, which can be outlined below:

1. Professional YouTube subtitles

For an often very low cost, many professional subtitling companies, including Capital Captions, can transcribe and subtitle YouTube videos to a high quality. Subtitles can be created in different colours and styles, and professional subtitle translation services can also be provided. With many viewers watching content without audio, high quality subtitlers can make the real difference to subscriber retention, where poor subtitlers can mean that viewers turn the channel.

2. Edited YouTube automated subtitles

A reasonable option for videos with medium to high quality audio, with auto-generated subtitles of a reasonable quality, YouTube advises to check through and edit subtitles to ensure full accuracy. Edits can be made directly on the YouTube platform to timings and text.

3. YouTube automated subtitles

The free of charge, go-to option for amateurs who aren’t worried about the quality and/or overall accessibility of their videos. Automated subtitles on YouTube use voice recognition to create a transcript of the video, and then auto times that transcript to be as much as possible in line with the audio.

YouTube Subtitling Methods – How does quality differ?

1. Professional YouTube Subtitles

When working with a professional subtitling company, you should ensure that the subtitles will be created and edited by a professional subtitler, without automation. Any edits required should also be covered within the subtitling cost and services are usually quick with short turnaround times.

Mispronunciations will be amended to ensure that subtitles make full sense. Subtitles will be split to never finish and start a sentence mid-subtitle, making the captions flow better. Punctuation and references within videos will be checked for accuracy both in terms of spelling and making sure the subtitles are always fully coherent.

Subtitles will be timed to accuracy within 1/25 of a second, to start when speech starts and finish when speech stops. Alterations will, however, be made where speech is fast to ensure that viewers have time to read along and understand the content. A human, whether creating subtitles from scratch or editing an automated caption file, will be able to make sensible truncations on text, as and when required. The ability to amend text to allow reading time is where professional subtitling services really shine.

2. Edited YouTube Automated Subtitles

Creating subtitles free of charge, then taking the time to make edits can be a good idea for videos that already have almost entirely accurate subtitles. However, for most videos and for most YouTubers wanting high quality, accurate subtitles, the task of running quality control on YouTube automated subtitles can take even longer than learning to subtitle and working from scratch.

Free, automated subtitles which require extensive amendments can cost more in time than paying a subtitling company to quickly work on your videos from the start. The task of amending an automated subtitle file is often far longer than anticipated. Timings can also be especially awkward to tweak on the YouTube online platform and it can be difficult and/or confusing to fix grammar and sentence splits for longform content. Stopping and starting the video alone, can be highly time consuming when checking for accuracy.

3. Automated YouTube Subtitles

Quality of automated subtitles can vary, depending on the sound quality of the video, any accents within the video, and the complexity of the speech. Automated subtitles tend to be lacking in grammar, with overly long sentences and inaccuracies in punctuation. Sometimes, these issues can make it hard for viewers to understand the subtitles. In addition, reading speeds on automated subtitles for fast speakers can be so fast as to render captions almost entirely useless. Automated captions will be verbatim, word for word, including any repetitions, filler words, and often mistyped ‘ahs’ and ‘ums’.

Is it worth buying subtitles for YouTube or adding YouTube subtitles for free?

While automating captions for YouTube may feel like a formality,  ‘ticking an accessibility box’, videos with poor subtitles can often lose views. The choice on whether it’s worth trying automated subtitles from YouTube can come down to the issues below:

• How likely is it the video will be watched without sound?

Especially when it comes to YouTube shorts, many videos can be watched without sound. If your intended audience is likely to watch your videos on-the-go, subtitles should be considered every bit as important as your video content. In this instance, we’d always advise to go fully down the professional subtitling route.

• How likely is it the video will be watched without sound?

Especially when it comes to YouTube shorts, many videos can be watched without sound. If your intended audience is likely to watch your videos on-the-go, subtitles should be considered every bit as important as your video content. In this instance, we’d always advise to go fully down the professional subtitling route.

• Is the sound quality good enough for an accurate transcription using voice recognition?

Automated subtitles are usually only feasible where speakers are microphoned or speaking directly into camera and there is no background noise, background music and/or overspeaking.

• Is there a fast speaker in the video?

Where there is fast speech in a video, subtitles should be edited to be shorter and to the point to ensure that viewers comfortably have time to read the captions. Editing text down and making omissions requires understanding so fast speech should always be subtitled by a human and not automated.

• Does the speaker in the video have a strong accent?

Mishears and poor pronunciation can have dramatic and sometimes hysterical effects on the accuracy of subtitles. For strong accents, it’s recommended to use a human subtitler who is fully acquainted with that accent in order to ensure accuracy. If using automated subtitles for speakers with accents, the subtitle file must be fully QC’d.

• Will translation be required?

Translation itself requires understanding, localization and full fluency in the target language. For this reason, translations should always be performed by a professional translator, but the source file is just as important.

Keeping Chinese whispers in mind, if your subtitles are going to be translated, correct grammar, punctuation and accuracy of transcription are vital for the source file, as any mistakes in subtitles will be amplified in translation. We would ALWAYS recommend using professional subtitling, translation and captioning services when any translation is involved.

• What is the genre of the video, i.e. educational?

If your video genre is specialized, e.g. medicine, law, engineering, technology, etc, specialist language will often be used, along with jargon that needs to be checked and researched by a human translator. Especially for education videos which may discuss grammar and/or the English language, it’s absolutely imperative that grammar, punctuation and spelling are entirely accurate. Poor English in a video about English and/or communication, can cause a video to completely lose credibility. On the whole, if your video is of a general nature with no complex language or references, it may be fine to go ahead with automated subtitling.

• How visual or dialogue heavy is the content?

Some YouTube videos are made up almost entirely of speech, where others depend on visuals. If your video is mostly made up of dialogue, the quality of the subtitles can have a huge impact on viewers. For visually focused videos, however, there can be little to no dialogue and so here, captions will be firstly, easier to edit if using automation, and secondly, less detrimental to the overall video if there are any inaccuracies.

• How much will the subtitle quality affect my audience?

The importance placed on captions and subtitles can relate to the intended audience. For almost all videos, especially factual or technical videos, subtitles should be considered of utmost importance. However, if your video is musical in nature or children’s content, the audience may less likely be impacted by less-than-perfect subtitling.

• How much will subtitle quality affect my reputation?

When choosing whether to go with professional subtitling or automated captions, you should consider the reputation and impression you want to give your audience. Sadly, poor subtitling may be accepted as a relatively common occurrence with YouTube content in general.

However, if you are making videos around equality, accessibility, political issues or indeed, psychological, moral discussions, not taking the time to ensure that your videos are properly accessible can lead to a poor reputation and possibly in some instances, accusations of being a hypocrite! Often, poor quality subtitles can be worse than no subtitles at all. 

So there you have it, we hope you enjoyed reading our subtitles on YouTube guide. If you’re ready to add captions to your Youtube videos then click the button below and we’ll make sure we give you a our best and most competetive rate for your YouTube videos.