Pages in topic:   < [1 2]
Where are we heading?
Thread poster: Merab Dekano
Jeffrey Henson
Jeffrey Henson
France
Local time: 03:08
Member (2015)
French to English
The YouTube automatic subtitle feature is totally useless Jan 8, 2016

Michael Beijer wrote:


Sounds very likely. Automatic transcription/subbing is already available in a number of programs/places:

1. YouTube has a feature for automatically adding subtitles to uploaded videos.
2. Adobe Premiere (a video editor) has a similar feature.
3. Dragon NaturallySpeaking has a transcription feature: you feed it audio (preferably your own voice), and it will try to transcribe it automatically.

So, yes, it seems quite likely that software was involved here.


Yes, and the YouTube automatic subtitle feature gives results similar to those described by Merab. I was just watching an episode of a Spanish "telenovela" (I know many of them are stupid, but it's my péché mignon) and, having read this thread, flipped on the subtitle feature just out of curiosity.
The scene involved a soldier attacking a woman physically where there was a lot of struggling, banging and background noise in addition to the characters screaming at each other. At one point the woman screamed out "¡Suéltame!" (let go of me !), whereas if we were to believe the subtitles, she in fact screamed "Coca-cola" (?!).



 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 03:08
French to English
on a less dramatic level, Jan 8, 2016

I recently spent several hours researching the links between seals (as in the cute animal) and sails (as on a yacht). I was translating a presentation about a yacht race that had been transcribed by someone who clearly knew nothing about sailing. I had a video of the presentation but the camera only focussed on the speaker and I couldn't see the photos he was showing. At one point he started talking about removing the "phoque" to make the yacht go faster. The video showed him pointing his cursor... See more
I recently spent several hours researching the links between seals (as in the cute animal) and sails (as on a yacht). I was translating a presentation about a yacht race that had been transcribed by someone who clearly knew nothing about sailing. I had a video of the presentation but the camera only focussed on the speaker and I couldn't see the photos he was showing. At one point he started talking about removing the "phoque" to make the yacht go faster. The video showed him pointing his cursor at the "phoque" but I couldn't see it. Well I suppose seals could weigh quite a bit and if you removed one from a yacht that might help the yacht go faster but... this wasn't Life of Pi 2...

In the end I googled "parts of a yacht" in English and translated the terms back into French. Thus I found that the small sail (jib) was called "foc" in French (pronounced the same as "phoque").

Luckily I was able to translate the rest of the presentation pretty quickly so I didn't lose out in terms of productivity, but what the foc?
Collapse


 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:08
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
Indeed, it's pretty terrible Jan 8, 2016

Jeff Henson wrote:

Michael Beijer wrote:


Sounds very likely. Automatic transcription/subbing is already available in a number of programs/places:

1. YouTube has a feature for automatically adding subtitles to uploaded videos.
2. Adobe Premiere (a video editor) has a similar feature.
3. Dragon NaturallySpeaking has a transcription feature: you feed it audio (preferably your own voice), and it will try to transcribe it automatically.

So, yes, it seems quite likely that software was involved here.


Yes, and the YouTube automatic subtitle feature gives results similar to those described by Merab. I was just watching an episode of a Spanish "telenovela" (I know many of them are stupid, but it's my péché mignon) and, having read this thread, flipped on the subtitle feature just out of curiosity.
The scene involved a soldier attacking a woman physically where there was a lot of struggling, banging and background noise in addition to the characters screaming at each other. At one point the woman screamed out "¡Suéltame!" (let go of me !), whereas if we were to believe the subtitles, she in fact screamed "Coca-cola" (?!).



I basically never do subtitling, but I tried it in the past once or twice, and so looked around at the time whether there were any automatic solutions to speed things up.


 
Merab Dekano
Merab Dekano  Identity Verified
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Cona-Cola, Monster... Jan 8, 2016

Michael Beijer wrote:


The scene involved a soldier attacking a woman physically where there was a lot of struggling, banging and background noise in addition to the characters screaming at each other. At one point the woman screamed out "¡Suéltame!" (let go of me !), whereas if we were to believe the subtitles, she in fact screamed "Coca-cola" (?!).



I just cracked source code of this software:

The original text: ¡Suéltame, monstruo!

The route the software takes (with Andalusian accent):

¡Niño: lárgame un Monster, mosto, Boston, botón, montón, pelotón, planctón, botellón, cantón, cartón, Colón [Cristóbal], canela, cantinela, coca [anhela mi cuerpo], Coca-Cola¡

It's not that difficult.

Now, seriously. What is the "fitness for purpose" of this pseudo-tool?


 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:08
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
possible use: use YouTube to auto-generate a time-coded srt file for further processing Jan 8, 2016

Merab Dekano wrote:

Now, seriously. What is the "fitness for purpose" of this pseudo-tool?


Although the quality of the transcriptions are usually not that great, the YouTube tool can be used for something. Please note that I'm not a subtitling specialist (and so most of what I am about to say may be wildly incorrect), but one part of the subtitling process is adding time codes to a video track. So you could use the YouTube automatic subtitling tool to detect when someone is speaking and automatically add subtitles to your video. You could then either:
(1) use their online interface to edit these results yourself (fixing and improving them), or
(2) you could download the time coded subtitling file as a text file, for further processing in another tool on your desktop.

In any case, as far as I can remember now, this was one of the ideas I had had at the time: use YouTube to generate a time-coded srt file for further processing.


 
Merab Dekano
Merab Dekano  Identity Verified
Spain
Member (2014)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Makes sense Jan 8, 2016

Michael Beijer wrote:

Merab Dekano wrote:

Now, seriously. What is the "fitness for purpose" of this pseudo-tool?


Although the quality of the transcriptions are usually not that great, the YouTube tool can be used for something. Please note that I'm not a subtitling specialist (and so most of what I am about to say may be wildly incorrect), but one part of the subtitling process is adding time codes to a video track. So you could use the YouTube automatic subtitling tool to detect when someone is speaking and automatically add subtitles to your video. You could then either:
(1) use their online interface to edit these results yourself (fixing and improving them), or
(2) you could download the time coded subtitling file as a text file, for further processing in another tool on your desktop.

In any case, as far as I can remember now, this was one of the ideas I had had at the time: use YouTube to generate a time-coded srt file for further processing.


Provided a "mortal" can do what you are saying, it makes perfect sense. Only occasionally do I transcribe audio/video files (if steady customers ask me to) and let me tell you, it's the most time consuming exercise (because you have to manually time each line, hence listen to it several times).


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 03:08
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Even in the same language Jan 8, 2016

Samuel Murray wrote:
It happens, even in professionally subbed shows. I don't see it very regularly, but I've definitely seen it quite a few times while watching English shows on Dutch television. Usually the mistranslation does not affect the enjoyment of the show for non-speakers of the spoken language, however.


I also often watch English films with English subtitles. Now, one can't expect the English subtitles to follow the spoken text exactly, since there are limitations for text on a screen, but sometimes the person who subtitled the film gets it wrong as well.

Just now I saw a film in which a soldier in a regiment camps out at night and says to the guest (who is not a soldier but simply travels with the regiment), "Now get some sleep". Only... the subtitler subtitled it as "I'll get some sleep". The "now" does sound a bit muffled and I suppose that if someone did not see the visuals and heard the sentence out of context, that "I'll get some sleep" would have been a perfectly reasonable thing to "hear". But in the next scene, the guest is asleep and in the scene after it the soldier stands guard. Clearly the soldier had in fact said to the guest "Now get some sleep". But I think we should give subtitlers a bit of slack.


 
Michele Fauble
Michele Fauble  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 19:08
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
Steam hacking Jan 9, 2016

The spoken words were 'Stephen Hawking'.

 
Pages in topic:   < [1 2]


To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator:


You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request »

Where are we heading?






CafeTran Espresso
You've never met a CAT tool this clever!

Translate faster & easier, using a sophisticated CAT tool built by a translator / developer. Accept jobs from clients who use Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast & major CAT tools. Download and start using CafeTran Espresso -- for free

Buy now! »
TM-Town
Manage your TMs and Terms ... and boost your translation business

Are you ready for something fresh in the industry? TM-Town is a unique new site for you -- the freelance translator -- to store, manage and share translation memories (TMs) and glossaries...and potentially meet new clients on the basis of your prior work.

More info »