A few days ago YouTube announced the addition of Closed Captioning support to its videos. One small problem though… YouTube included neither the tools nor the services to help video owners create the actual captioning source files– SubViewer (*.SUB) and SubRip (*.SRT)—needed to activate this feature. This is where SubPLY, the new video captioning service by PLYmedia might be helpful. With the launch of the service the company is providing an exclusive offer for TechCrunch readers: Free professionally produced English and Spanish closed captioning for YouTube videos!
SubPLY will provide English & Spanish captioning to 5000 YouTube videos submitted by TechCrunch readers. The video source language must be English and video duration cannot exceed 5 minutes. The captioning will be available within 24-hours of video submission. Offer details and how-to, here.
Is captioning videos really worth the hassle? YouTube clearly believes as much and PLYmedia’s internal research supports this claim as well. SubPLY was piloted with a video publisher that tested ten different videos for a period of six weeks, in three different languages (English, Spanish and French). Here are the results for videos watched with captioning:
- Foreign language usage and viewership increased over 700% in a 5 week period.
- 19% more viewers watched videos to completion than those without subtitles.
- The share function (sending the video to others) was used by viewers watching subtitles 171% more often (the viral effect was boosted).
- A 37% increase in both users who watched the video in full screen mode and users who replayed video.
A short backgrounder on PLYmedia: The Israeli company, which recently raised $6 million, provides video publishers the ability to add layers—”PLYs” as the company calls them—on top of their video players. These layers allow a variety of interactive applications to be offered along with the video with fairly minimal hassle for the publishers. The applications can range from BubblePLY (that lets users add text, images and graphics to videos) to information enrichment via infoPLY to ad overlays via adPLY.
SubPLY, the newest addition to PLYmedia’s range of “PLYd” applications is a dead-simple service that adds captioning to videos. All one has to do is provide a URL of a previously uploaded video and in return receive a new embed code from SubPLY that loads the original player along with the additional code necessary to overlay the captions. See the bottom of the post for an example.
SubPLY is being launched with captioning translation for 42 languages. The company will provide commercial customers a turnaround as quick as two hours from submitting the video to having the captioning active on it. Important to note is that the SubPLY embed code can be embedded immediately and the captioning functionality will appear once it’s available. Adding additional languages down the road will not require a code change, they will simply appear as soon as they are ready to go. Another aspect worthy of note is that the subtitles are encapsulated in an XML file that is made available with the SubPLY code. This means that videos are not only enriched with captioning, they are also enriched with additional SEO juice (XML files are parsed by search engines).
Pricing depends on the type of content, turnaround time, and scope of work per customer. There is also pricing “seasonality”. Current pricing is available here.
SubPly will open-up its translation tools in the coming months, allowing any user to create closed captions and subtitles. The tools were specifically created for online video, optimized for Flash and require no upload or transcoding.
i’ve never thought ‘holy crap, i need captioned videos,’ but then again, the web is the video platform most likely to be watched in an environment where sound is inappropriate. this could be nice.
One really innovative way of making more ad money and reaching out to a wider international market.
Nice, what a generous ofer by subPLY. I am going to try it now.
I think subtitle capabilities are going to become an expected feature on all videos. It’s another step in the world becoming “smaller” – videos that are available and accessible to all viewers. Subply created a standard to which all online videos will have to adhere..
Great choice of a demo movie, it’s not that I didnt understand what Martin meant to say but adding translations that works might help others to understand
what tolerance realy means – where can I get the embed code with the subtitles of the demo movie?
Nimitz – You can get the embed code here: http://www.subp...utube/howto.htm
Thanks you:)
Roi, thank you very much for the embed code and for posting a realy nice valued
article.
Will YouTube embrace this company or eliminate it by continuing to develop application features to layer over the top of videos?
I think that YouTube could eat these guys if they wanted. Myspace has been acquiring feature rich app companies (see Flektor), but has done nothing with it. Why can’t the big giants move in a direction where they can have more offerings aimed at facilitating original content, viralness and increased viewership. Come on, wake up.
tinycrunch is polling on this.
it’s not just about tools and features… these guys are providing you the full service, by professionals. i hope YT will embrace them as this is somthing YT will never do.. they may provide the tools, but the really important part is producing quality subtitles, which is an art…
ya i m god embed code Thanks
Very cool
these guys are not all about YouTube captioning. take a look at their site (www.subply.com) and see that they offer captions and subtitles for any web video, in any site, and with any player.
It’s sad to see companies like MySpace, who acquire comapnies like Flektor for $50 million to enhance their video, just let them blow off in the wind. YouTube is no better. Their video offerings are still so minimal, but their brand recognition can’t be beat so they just sit and sleep. If anyone was hard at work over there, this company could be much more profitable and working on better ideas than just monetizing the homepage with a full screen trailer. Very original YouTube. You dissapoint me.
all videos will be subtitled eventually. this is a great step forward. videos can reach many more viewers with subtitles
I think this is an important service.
We must add the hearing impaired users into the video community.
I have no idea why Subply is offering this service for free – but as long as they do (and even if they charge a reasonable fee) this is service I am going to use.
@ Glu. Great point. Way to bring up Flektor. What happened to that company?
From what we know at tinycrunch, MySpace acquired them for their video technology and has done nothing with it. Our insiders at FIM say that Myspace has integrated some of the tools that Flektor had like polls, etc. into photobucket. It’s pretty sad to see as the guys who started Flektor had an intelligent idea and some mind blowing technology from Jason Rubin and his partners. It’d be nice to see YouTube acquire PlyMedia and apply their features to everyone.
adding subtitles makes perfect economical sense to any website. for a fraction of your video production cost you let your video reach many more viewers.
I just went to http://subply.com and create a request and got this EMBED CODE.
Let see if I have captions on it within 24 hours…
http://www.subp...0b-a9d591006306
here is what u set after they create the captions:
http://www.subp...c6-4bb006daa8f5
this is great!!!!
yep. I got it
http://www.subp...0b-a9d591006306
The mail:
Dear SubPLY User
We’re pleased to let you know that the professional captions/subtitles you have requested are now available for the following video:
Subtitles:English
Video Url: http://www.yout...h?v=uLAme4tNMBw
Length: 00:01:21
Request No: 770933d8-ca47-47ba-810b-a9d591006306
Price: Free!
Request created: 9/2/2008 7:13:00 PM (GMT)
Request delivered: 9/3/2008 10:43:52 AM (GMT)
Status: Completed
If you have not already done so, you can now embed the video in your site , complete with subtitles , by using the embed code available at :
http://www.subp...0b-a9d591006306
Your viewers can now enjoy an enhanced viewing experience with SubPLY.
Thank you and we hope you’ll enjoy our subtitles.
SubPLY Team
http://www.SubPLY.com
yep. got it.
http://www.subp...0b-a9d591006306
Very nice, i have to admit i watch video at work and in most of the time it is in mute mode, i guess this is one of the reasons youtube is pushing for this to happen, Seems like PLY is taking advantage of this offering which seems to be a smart move, eventually we (web users/viewers) will benefit out of this move
Cool trick – viewing movies with no one knowing…Captions sure help you do that
yes, I guess you can’t wear your earphones during a meeting….
At some point, we’ll need you people to learn the difference between subtitling and captioning.
I wonder if these guys can offer additional languages, the real value is getting to more people that are not fluent in English, can you offer translation to greek from English? this would be super!
Come to think of it, having subs can assist you with tracking specific scenes, right? you are familiar with the video content and therefore these videos become searchable and moreover – you can direct the viewer to a specific scene, how cool is that?
Actually, that would open way more possibilities to using videos, if all the content was searchable… just think about it..
I know these guys, saw their presentation several months ago in Barcelona, they have really nice products, i know they are talking with several companies in Spain.
they seem to have great technology and service. wish them luck
I saw on their site (Sample videos) videos with more than one language subtitles.. so I’m sure they can offer Greek too..
Here is a link to a video with subtitles in German, English, and Spanish
http://www.myho...&FROMPAGE=0
It seems than in the near future, any video which will published on a decent site will be subtitled.
I’m sure you’re right.
This whole subtitling product looks great. What’s the model though? I assume they’ll start charging for the subs at some point. From a production cost, it’s probably a small amount of $ but has some great potential if the video is in multiple languages and helps the hard of hearing, but I assume the model isn’t just that. If these guys want to make money, they need to use the subtitles as part of some overall ad offer or strategy – are they doing that? They should. But they have reportedly raised $6m so I assume I’m not writing something they or their VCs haven’t thought of. I was just curious. Anyway, great stuff and good luck to them.
the data from the subtitles can also be used for contextual ads, no?
think of it, if the video is being subtitled, you can know what is in it, and you can make it more attractive for advertisers. this can be part of the solution of how to make money from user generated content
subtitles are also great for people speaking English as a second language. it makes it much easier to fully understand the video.
did you see the video embeded in the post? it has many languages. all synchronized to the same file. think of the amount of storage space you save (not to mention the hassle you avoid) compared to traditional subtitle technologies where you need a copy of the video per language..
this is a great service I’m going to use.
this is great for global enterprises. they can have all instructional material translated for all the offices
yes, some comanies started to use videos instead of manuals. this can be great and will reduce the tech support costs
we sent in a video URL less than two hours ago and it’s already done.
Their turnaround is absolutely amazing. The video is perfectly transcribed.
http://cosmetic...ter-your-chairs
Very Very Cool.
Thanks, it really is cool. I can see where the future is going.
We just uploaded it to YouTube and it looks even better there, the background is black. This was a difficult video to transcribe as Katie is speaking very fast, but it worked perfectly.
http://www.yout...h?v=GIcq_qq3m7c
same as non of us would see a foreign movie without subtitles, user abroads will not view emglish movies without being translated to their language.
think of the portential. most of the content is in english. most of the viewers (globally) don’t speak english…
Can be great solution for news companies like Reuters and Bloomberg
There is something I don’t understand. in the embed sample they show a cool UI to change languages, but in my YouTube embed there is no way to show captions and to change languages – why?
Just got my movie back translated, have to say I am impressed.
I think this is an important service.
We must add the hearing impaired users into the video community.
I have no idea why Subply is offering this service for free – but as long as they do (and even if they charge a reasonable fee) this is service I am going to use.
Indeed. The deaf and hearing-impaired community has been using http://www.overstream.net for a while.
This is great! Closed captioning really needs to become more wide spread and this is a great way to help that. Hopefully the major networks will jump on this bandwagon and offer CC for online tv episodes.
Mac users can use MovCaptioner to easily caption their videos, then upload either an SRT or SUB file to YouTube. It’s cheap and easy to use.
Website: http://www.synchrimedia.com
Are they still doing it? I want to see this one:
http://www.yout...h?v=F-_6KGEd4eM