NEW YORK—A new study, timed to mark World Accessibility Day (May 21), finds that captions are now an important part of mainstream viewing—particularly among younger viewers and in the United States.

Data from a survey conducted by XR Extreme Reach and M8 Labs shows that advertisers and content providers who fail to caption their content are missing large audiences who are watching more video with captions than ever before. The survey of more than 3,000 people across the U.S., U.K., France, Spain and Germany found that captions have become a mainstream viewing behavior in every market.

But by nearly every measure, U.S. viewers are emerging as a caption-heavy audience. Eighty-seven percent of Americans say they use captions at least sometimes, while nearly half say they use them always or often when watching video.

Among U.S. audiences, 87% use captions at least sometimes, 49% use them often or always, 21% always have them on, and just 13% never have them on.

“Captions started as an important accessibility feature for audiences with hearing impairments, but they’ve evolved into something much bigger,” said Graham McKenna, chief marketing officer of XR Extreme Reach. “Captions are now part of how we watch movies, streaming series, social content, and advertising. For many of us, captions have become as important as the picture and sound, helping people follow dialogue and stay connected to the story.”

“Always or often” caption use by country:

• 49% U.S.
• 47% Spain
• 46% France
• 23% Germany (Among German caption users, 75% identify non-native language content as their single most important reason for using captions)/

XR’s research also debunks the idea that captions are mainly for older or hearing-impaired audiences. Nearly 60% of 18-to-24-year-olds say they use captions always or often, compared to just 27% of viewers over 65. Caption viewing is being driven by a generation raised on TikTok, Instagram and short-form video, where captions aren’t optional, they’re expected.

• 59%—18–to-24-year-olds / always or often use captions.
• 64%—25-to-34-year-olds / always or often use captions.
• 47% —45-to-54-year-olds / always or often use captions.
• 38%—55-to-64-year-olds / always or often use captions.
• 27%—65-plus / always or often use captions.

The top reasons people use captions cuts across all age groups and goes far beyond accessibility. Viewers say they turn on captions to better understand dialogue and accents, deal with unclear audio or noisy rooms, or simply because they like watching video that way. Surprisingly, 42% of U.S. viewers prefer to watch video with captions even when the audio is perfect.

• 44%—understand dialogue better.
• 43%—catch details they might otherwise miss.
• 36%—improve attention to the screen.
• 21%—multitask when watching.

Most viewers are using smart TVs to watch video with captions, with 86% of viewers across all markets using such sets to watch at home. Smartphones follow at 46%, with laptops at 36%, tablets at 24% and gaming consoles at 15%. Yet caption usage remains remarkably consistent across every screen and content genre.

Younger audiences aren’t just using captions more than anyone else, they’re also paying more attention to ads because of them. 61 percent of 25-34-year-olds say captions and subtitles make them more likely to pay attention to ads, the highest lift of any age group and the exact audience most brand advertisers are trying to reach.

• 45%—18–to-24-year-olds /increased attention.
• 61%—25-to-34-year-olds /increased attention.
• 20%—55–to-64-year-olds /increased attention.
• 14%—65-plus year-olds /increased attention.
• U.S. advertisers still lag with caption adoption.

“For brands, agencies, and ad creative leaders, captions are no longer something that can be treated as an afterthought,” McKenna said. “Whether it’s designing video ads for readability, accounting for on-screen text, or making sure key moments still land with captions on, marketers need to start building creative for the way audiences actually watch today.”

More information about the report is available here.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill.—In a move that could make TV programming both accessible and engaging, Cobalt Digital announced a partnership with SineSix Media that will integrate SineSix’s vocalVision audio description solution into Cobalt’s 9922 frame synchronizer family.

The combined solution brings real-time audio descriptions of on-screen graphics directly into the broadcast workflow ensuring visually impaired viewers don’t miss critical information. Demonstrations of the collaborative solution will be conducted at 2026 NAB Show at Cobalt’s Booth # N 1340.

“By integrating vocalVision with our 9922 family, we’re enabling broadcasters to meet regulatory requirements while delivering a richer, more inclusive viewing experience,” said Suzana Brady, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Cobalt Digital. “This collaboration goes beyond regulatory compliance to provide an environment that supports greater audience engagement, trust, and promotes safety.”

Designed to help broadcasters comply with the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (21CVAA), vocalVision ensures that visually impaired audiences can fully access critical information that is often conveyed visually during live and recorded broadcasts.

The solution goes beyond traditional compliance tools by providing automated, real-time narration of graphical content such as lower-third headlines, weather radar maps, election data, sports graphics, and more. Integration with Cobalt Digital’s 9922 enables visual and audio accessibility tools to be combined into a unified workflow, ensuring that critical visual information is both seen and heard, improving accessibility for visually impaired audiences while enhancing overall viewer engagement.

The integrated workflow allows broadcasters to trigger audio description events directly from existing graphics systems via SineSix’s Watchman API, or through a user-friendly browser-based interface.

The system also provides flexible control options, allowing operators to manage alerts and descriptions manually, on scheduled intervals, or via automated triggers. Shared watch folders enable seamless ingestion of text and image assets, while Cobalt’s +TTS functionality converts text to speech and inserts audio into the program stream in real time. Cobalt’s +EAS option supports emergency alert delivery, and +LOGO enables on-screen graphic insertion, creating a unified and efficient accessibility solution.

Additional capabilities include AI-assisted image description for elements such as weather radar maps, customizable pronunciation dictionaries for accurate text-to-speech output, and multilingual support for broader audience reach.

“vocalVision was designed to make accessibility seamless and meaningful,” said Taylor Hightower, CTO for SineSix Media. “Working with Cobalt allows us to bring this capability directly into the broadcast signal chain, making it easier than ever for broadcasters to serve all audiences effectively.”

PLYMOUTH, Wisc.—Heartland Video Systems (HVS) recently completed configuring New Mexico PBS’s Ateme-based encoding system with live artificial intelligence (AI) language translation of the broadcaster’s ATSC 3.0 OTA broadcast signal using LingoPal’s cloud translation services.

New Mexico PBS operates KNME-TV licensed to Albuquerque and KNMD-TV licensed to Santa Fe. The broadcaster created its own ATSC 3.0 lighthouse when KNMD-TV transitioned to 3.0 in June 2021, HVS said.

That conversion included a full solution from HVS, including an Ateme encoder that processes two HD program streams and three SD program streams that are simulcasts of KNME-TV’s offerings. New Mexico PBS and HVS have continued to evolve the functions and capabilities of the ATSC 3.0 OTA system over the last several years, most recently by providing AI-powered language translation, it said.

The HVS engineering team reconfigured KNMD-TV’s Ateme 3.0 encoder to send an SRT English-only audio stream to LingoPal’s cloud-based service. The 5.1 English audio track (there was no need to send SAP audio) was processed through the AI system, it said.

"Technology is moving fast, and what unlocks it for broadcasters is the tight, day-to-day collaboration between our teams and partners like Ateme, aligning encoding, delivery, and real-time translation so it just works inside existing workflows,” said Casey Schneider, LingoPal founder and CTO.

Live Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean translations of the original audio, delivered in 2.0 downmix mode and lip-synced with the video, are returned to the TV station’s ATSC 3.0 Ateme encoder, the company said.

“Sometimes technology advances enough to unlock features that previously could not be imagined,” said Mike Schmidt, ATSC 3.0 technologist at HVS. “The hope, in that case, is that the process isn’t too complex or require[s] so many resources so that it can’t be readily used. I was very pleased to find that neither drawback applied to this feature set. The entire configuration took about an hour, not including the work LingoPal did to prep the service beforehand, and worked as advertised the first attempt.”

The benefits of adding this new capability, particularly with regards to emergency messaging, “can’t be overstated,” said New Mexico PBS director of engineering Jason Quinn.

“The ability to communicate with our viewers in their native language gives us the chance to serve our complete audience with all of the important details they need in times of an emergency,” he said.

Heartland Video Systems will exhibit during the 2025 NAB Show New York, Oct. 22-23, at the Javits Center in New York City.

See HVS at NAB Show New York booth 465.

More information is available on the company’s website.

NOVI, Mich.—ENCO has unveiled Raptor, a cloud-based live streaming captioning encoder that injects the speed, power and reliability of real-time AI capabilities into the streaming workflow.

Raptor represents the convergence of pure software-defined infrastructure with AI and automated captioning workflows, providing embedded captions in an IP video stream, the company said.

Introduced at IBC2025, Raptor offers a simple, straightforward way to embed CEA-608 closed captions into a live program stream. That process incorporates the AI-based workflow from ENCO’s enCaption solutions to generate captions automatically with high accuracy. Users can also use outside cloud captioning sources.

Requiring no hardware infrastructure, Raptor is consistent with the shift broadcasters are making to move their video workflows to the cloud. Quick to deploy, Raptor offers a powerful new captioning option for live events, it said.

“With no physical encoder to maintain, customers are assured a cost-efficient and agile solution that is quick to configure and deploy,” said ENCO president Ken Frommert. “Raptor represents a new threshold in flexible, cost-efficient live and automated captioning, and we’re excited to present its capabilities to our customers and partners at IBC.”

Raptor was developed as a fully software-defined architecture to allow for customization at any point along the chain to best match the workflows and standards in use. Instead of SDI signals via fixed cabling, the solution employs SRT, RTMP or HLS video streams at the front end. As Raptor’s architecture can be hosted on a variety of public or private clouds, captions can be injected at nearly any stage, offering tremendous flexibility for deployment and operation. Upon engaging and regenerating the stream, captioning text is inserted and the outbound stream is made available to the customer, the company said.

Raptor offers the accuracy of the company’s enCaption universe and ensures compatibility with its enTranslate solutions, enabling translations to dozens of languages. Users can also customize word libraries and employ corrective filters, speaker identification and the ability to recognize music, laughter, applause and crowd noise, it said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

NEW YORK—Even though a majority of people now watch TV with the captions turned on, a new study found that just 10% of global TV ads include accessibility features such as closed captions or audio descriptions.

As a result, most TV ads remain inaccessible, indicating that brands are losing reach and excluding audiences with disabilities, who represent $8 trillion in spending power, according to the new “2025 Global Accessibility Maturity Index & Trends Report” from XR.

The study also stressed that the problem extends beyond audiences with disabilities because watching TV with captions is becoming a mainstream trend. Recent studies show that over 50% of adults, and more than 75% of millennials and Gen Z, regularly have closed captioning enabled, even when content is in their native language, XR reported. Research indicates that adding captions improves ad performance, contributing to an 8% lift in recall and an 18% increase in brand linkage, XR said.

“Our report reveals a significant gap between viewer preferences and execution—but the brands, broadcasters and publishers that close it will gain an edge in reach, loyalty and performance across every channel, from linear to CTV,” John Batter, CEO at XR, said. “Millions of impressions are lost when people can’t understand video content. Accessible advertising ensures every impression can connect, whether audiences have disabilities, are watching in public or simply prefer to keep captioning turned on."

Commending on the findings, Paul Gallagher, global brand accessibility leader at Procter & Gamble, added that “at P&G, we know that superior reach and communication lead to a superior shopping and product usage experience. That is why, together with the industry, we work with partners like XR who champion accessibility standards and help expand reach. We’re working to make sure everyone can access our ads, so we can better reach all our consumers.”

Now in its second year, the global report evaluates market maturity of accessible TV advertising across three core dimensions—brand adoption, broadcaster enablement and market-level enablers such as regulation and policy guidance. Key findings included:

• Accessible advertising can expand reach: Only 9% of TV ads in 2024 included closed captions, and just 1% included audio description — despite over 1.3 billion people globally living with a disability and a significant portion of viewers often watching with captions.
• Brand adoption lags behind broadcaster readiness: While broadcaster readiness ranges from 30–100%, brand adoption of accessibility features still lags below 30% in most markets—revealing a clear gap between platform capability and brand usage.
• CTV ads are still far behind: Adoption of accessibility features on connected TV remains negligible, with less than 1% of streaming ads including captions or audio description.
• Audio description is still in its infancy: Only 4 markets featured in the report saw audio description adoption rise above 1% in 2024.
• Accessibility maturity remains low in most markets: The global average Accessibility Maturity Index across 15 markets featured in the report is 2.3, placing most countries in the “Emerging” or “Developing” stage.
• XR's analysis includes 650,000 creative video assets and nearly 12 million ad deliveries across over 100 countries, providing a comprehensive assessment of the state of accessibility in TV advertising.

XR has enabled closed captioning and audio description for hundreds of thousands of creative video assets, helping advertisers embed accessibility features across campaigns running on linear and streaming platforms.

The full 2025 Global Accessibility Maturity Index & Trends Report is available here.

LOS GATOS, Calif.—After greatly expanding its global production and offering programming from around the world, Netflix is also making the viewing experience more multilingual with a new “Language Picker” feature that allows viewers to select from more than 30 languages for subtitles and dubs when watching programs on TV.

In launching the feature, the streamer explained that nearly a third of all viewing on Netflix is for non-English stories and that its catalog includes a wide variety of TV shows and movies in over 30 languages, from critically acclaimed films to binge-worthy series.

In addition, some of the most popular TV and film titles available on the streaming platform include Squid Game (Korea), Berlin (Spain), Lupin (France), Who Killed Sara? (Mexico), Troll (Norway), and Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany).

In response to viewer demand to make its programming available in more language, Netflix has launched a new features that allows viewers to pick from the full list of available languages for any title when watching Netflix on a TV. Netflix noted that this much-anticipated feature carries over the experience members already enjoy on mobile devices and web browsers.

Netflix also explained that many members use Netflix to learn a foreign language thanks to the many languages available on the service and it is now offering additional features to support language learning, including the ability to customize subtitles, and the Browse by Language feature on PC computers. These helpful features enhance the accessibility of shows and movies, while supporting those set on being multilingual.

More details are available in this YouTube video

SAN JOSE, Calif.—XL8, an AI-driven real-time translation technology company, has announced that it is has successfully deployed a real-time solution to translate English captions to Spanish.

The company reported that the breakthrough, which was achieved in collaboration with the Public Media Venture Group (PMVG), marks the first commercial deployment of AI-based real-time translation in U.S. public broadcasting.

XL8 will demonstrate this offering in collaboration with DigiCAP at the NAB Show 2025 in Las Vegas in April.

XL8 said that the technology was seamlessly integrated into the broadcast system of a television station in Cookeville, Tennessee, where it delivered live translated captions to viewers for the first time. This milestone represents a significant step in making content more accessible to multilingual audiences, utilizing the ATSC 3.0-based NextGen TV standard, the company said.

XL8’s AI-powered translation engine detects English closed captions in live broadcasts, instantly translates them into Spanish, and reintegrates them into the broadcast stream (multiplexing).

The system is compatible with existing production and transmission systems, including NextGen TV, allowing viewers with ATSC 3.0-compatible TVs to switch captions to Spanish via TV settings, with no additional equipment required.

The project was carried out in collaboration with DigiCAP, the Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA), and PBS station WCTE, with XL8 serving as the core provider of real-time subtitle translation technology. XL8 served as the core provider of the real-time subtitle translation technology, demonstrating its ability to integrate into existing workflows and deliver high-performance solutions in real broadcast environments.

As the number of Spanish-speaking households in the U.S. continues to grow, live broadcast captioning remains largely English-centric. XL8’s real-time translation now makes Spanish captions available for the first time in a U.S. public broadcast, enhancing accessibility and inclusivity for Spanish-speaking audiences, the participants in the project said.

“We serve a large number of Spanish-speaking households in our coverage area,” Avery Hutchins, president and CEO of PBS station WCTE, stated. “Thanks to this real-time captioning technology, they can now access our content more easily and comfortably. We’re thrilled with the result.”

XL8 also stressed that the integration of XL8’s real-time translation technology into live broadcasts sets a global precedent for AI-powered language accessibility. It showcases how AI language technologies can be seamlessly embedded into broadcast systems to engage multilingual communities and enhance public service.

“This project was not just a technology test, it’s a meaningful milestone that proves XL8’s real-time translation can be integrated into live broadcast production and delivery,” Tim Jung, CEO of XL8, stated. “We’re excited to continue improving our solutions to provide greater language accessibility for all viewers.”

XL8 will be attending The NAB Show 2025 (National Association of Broadcasters) where they will provide demonstrations of this technology at TechConnect on April 4, 2025 LVCC West Hall in Room 108/109 from 9am-5pm PT. XL8 will be located with its partner, DigiCAP.

To make an appointment at the show for a demo contact contact@eventcat.com.

CUPERTINO, Calif.—Interra Systems has announced that its long-time customer Starz has upgraded its caption generation and quality control workflows to the latest version of the Interra’s BATON Captions solution.

Starz made the move as part of an effort to streamline its English-to-Spanish captioning process. The newest version of BATON Captions has enhanced caption quality and helped the network detect and correct shift and drift errors more efficiently, the two companies said.

“Interra Systems’ BATON Captions has been instrumental in streamlining our captioning workflow,” Dan Stowell, director of programming operations at Starz, said. “BATON Caption's speech-to-text feature significantly reduces the time and effort required for creating accurate captions, which helps us meet the growing demand for multi-language content.”

BATON Captions uses cutting-edge machine language (ML) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology, allowing Starz to address caption-related requirements such as generation, postproduction editing and content localization. Harnessing the power of ML and ASR, BATON Captions ensures precise captioning every time. The automated solution includes a user-friendly web-based player and advanced reporting, with feedback on caption quality and more, Interra reported.

"For the past two years, we've proudly collaborated with Starz, delivering an innovative captioning solution that supports their global content strategy," said Ashish Basu, executive vice president of global sales and business development at Interra Systems. "Our BATON Captions solution, powered by machine learning and ASR technology, ensures high-quality captions and seamless audio compliance for Starz."

More information about Interra Systems solutions can be found at interrasystems.com.

MELBOURNE, Australia—Mediaproxy, a provider of software-based IP compliance solutions, has integrated AI-Media Technologies' recently launched LEXI Recorded self-service captioning and transcription platform into its LogServer compliance monitoring system.

The two Australian companies have a history of partnerships—AI-Media was originally a Mediaproxy customer, but the two companies have since been collaborating more closely, beginning by integrating LogServer with AI-Media's iCap cloud network.

Founded in Sydney in 2003, AI-Media has developed a full range of captioning technologies to generate, distribute and display subtitles for a variety of broadcasting and streaming platforms. These include viewing systems and encoders, with its core offering being the LEXI AI-powered toolkit. Among its features are automatic captioning, translation and disaster recovery capabilities.

LEXI Recorded, the latest addition to this suite of tools, was launched in February this year. The cloud service is designed to deliver fast turn-around captions for Video On Demand along with transcriptions and translations of broadcast output. Like LogServer, LEXI Recorded is file-based, which has allowed for easy integration of the two systems.

Mediaproxy announced at the 2024 NAB Show that LogServer is now able to work with LEXI Recorded, providing outputs from its logger/recorder that are taken into the AI-Media system for captioning, translation and transcription purposes.

"Our technology is also fully integrated into LogServer, enabling broadcasters to create a transcription on-demand of video content by simply selecting an in point and an out point on the clip they want captioned and sending it to LEXI Recorded from within the LogServer software," explains Declan Gallagher, general manager of sales for the Asia Pacific region at AI-Media. "The use case is primarily for compliance reasons. If a broadcaster was asked what went to air and didn't currently caption that channel, they would be able to quickly turn around a transcript of the content in question. Integrating further with LogServer has given our new service - and our users - a high degree of functionality and flexibility for an increasingly important aspect of broadcasting."

Mediaproxy's chief executive, Erik Otto, comments: "The integration of LEXI Recorded is an important addition to the features of our LogServer product and gives a great deal of flexibility in the crucial area of captioning and transcription. The partnership with AI-Media is a long-standing one and is only getting stronger. We are pleased to be working with such dedicated experts in this specialist field and helping to provide better accessibility for a wider TV audience."

As part of a push to improve the accessibility of its content, PBS Kids has announced that it has integrated American Sign Language (ASL) interpretations into multiple series that will be available for free on PBS Kids digital streaming platforms. 

This new content builds on PBS Kids’ extensive accessibility offerings, the network reported. Working with series producers from GBH Kids, Fred Rogers Productions, along with Bridge Multimedia and The Described and Captioned Media Program, PBS Kids integrated ASL interpretations into six popular PBS Kids series, with 10 episodes for each.

The series with ASL-integrations include: “Work It Out Wombats!”, “Pinkalicious & Peterrific”, “Arthur”, “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood”, “Donkey Hodie”, and “Alma’s Way”. The series with the ASL interpretations went live on April 18. 

PBS Kids also reported that its efforts to improve accessibility included research into their audience and their needs. The research found that for its audience, kids aged 2-8, is learning to read, but many are not yet independent readers. For those younger deaf and hard-of hearing (HoH) kids, they can’t simply access the audio content of a story via captions, but are in need of and benefit from seeing the ASL translations.

As part of the effort, PBS Kids and Bridge Multimedia also closely studied the optimal ASL placements and integrations within programming through user testing. 

This research-based attention to detail involved the placement of the ASL interpreter on-screen, who was moved around based on proximity to the character who is actively speaking. The interpreter also wears props (i.e. glasses) to look more like the character they were interpreting, PBS Kids reported. 

In addition PBS Kids also focused on the facial features of animated characters that indicate the ASL playlist on the website. For example, an initial design for the animated Deaf and hard-of-hearing (HoH) character did not include eyebrows. Following input from expert advisors indicated that eyebrows are an important aspect of facial communication that Deaf and HoH people rely on, the characters were redesigned. 

BROOKLYN, N.Y.—AI-Media, a provider of live captioning & subtitling, transcription, and translation solutions, has announced that it will be exhibiting at IBC2023 from Sept. 15 to 18 and that it will be showcasing several innovative broadcast solutions at the event, including its AI-Powered live automatic captioning solution, LEXI. 

AI-Media’s chief sales officer, James Ward explained that "We are delighted to participate at the IBC show once again. This tradeshow is an exceptional platform for us to showcase our latest innovations and demonstrate how we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in the broadcast industry. We're excited to engage with industry leaders, customers, and partners, and to share our vision for the future of broadcasting."

AI-Media will be showcasing several key broadcast solutions at the event, the cornerstone of which is their AI-Powered live automatic captioning solution – LEXI. 

The company reported that LEXI, which consistently delivers accuracy rates of over 98%, is able to identify speaker changes, uses AI to ensure captions don’t interrupt onscreen content and supplies captions at a fraction of the cost of human captions. 

AI-Media will be conducting live demos at the booth to display this groundbreaking technology in action. 

The recently launched AI-powered LEXI Captioning Tool Kit will also be featured at IBC2023, featuring six key solutions each designed to address different captioning needs.

AI-Media said that the LEXI Tool Kit transforms content creation and captioning, offering complete end-to-end solutions for media companies, broadcasters, event producers, educational institutions, and content creators worldwide. Broadcasters can mix and match the Tool Kit components to suit their business needs, accessing solutions including captioning, translation, archiving & search and disaster recovery.  

With IP video production at the forefront of innovation in the broadcasting landscape, AI-Media said that its ALTA solution provides broadcasters with an IP compatible closed captioning and subtitling encoding solution. 

ALTA supports global broadcast standards including SMPTE-2110, MPEG-TS inputs, and can output 2110-40, DVB subtitles, DVB TTML, DVB Teletext and SMPTE 2038. Deployable as a standalone virtual machine, a pre-packaged AMI or turnkey physical server, ALTA can fit into any production workflow. Along with effortlessly handling six languages per instance, ALTA also supports the insertion of advertising cues using SCTE-35 and SCTE-104. With ALTA, AI-Media is helping broadcasters elevate their IP video broadcasts to new heights of reach and accessibility. Also available at the booth will be our range of SDI Hardware Encoders, including our Encoder Pro (HD492) 1 RU caption encoder - now synonymous as the broadcast standard for SDI encoders.

In addition, the company reported that it will be providing customers with an early look at our upgraded LEXI Translate solution, which is the next level of language accessibility within our LEXI Tool Kit. This soon to be released version boasts unmatched accuracy in real-time translation, allowing broadcasters to distribute content to a wider audience than ever before.

See AI-Media at IBC 2023, September 15-18, RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre, Booth #5.C31.

NEW YORK—A new study from YPulse suggests that subtitles are being widely adopted by younger viewers as they watch TV, with 59% of Gen Z viewers and 52% of Millennials reporting that they prefer to watch TV with subtitles. 

The results highlight the importance of accurate subtitling for both general audiences and viewers with special needs and hearing issues. 

In its latest TV and Entertainment report, YPulse asked 13-39-year-olds about the TV and movie content they watch and their viewing experiences.

The finding that a majority of Gen Z and Millennials prefer to use subtitles when watching TV indicate that the use of subtitles has gone beyond the traditional use by people with special needs to a larger audiences, the researchers noted. 

“[M]ore than half of young people tell YPulse they prefer to use subtitles, and it’s not just because they need them; the gen makes use of reading text while watching movies/TV to keep up with murmuring dialogue, to distinguish thick accents (looking at you Peaky Blinders), and some say just to get a head start on a scene and go back to looking at their phone,” the researchers noted in a blog post. “Subtitle use is especially popular with Gen Z males: 61% say they prefer to use them.”

The post also stressed that “this popularity is beneficial to those who do need them because media brands like Netflix are putting more effort into making subtitles as immersive an experience as the audio itself….Netflix is the number one source of entertainment Gen Z and Millennials are using, and the one they feel offers the most inclusive content, which extends to hearing accessibility.”  

YPulse also cited children as a factor in the popularity of subtitles among Millennials. “According to a Kids Industries survey of parents with kids 5-15-years-old (a.k.a. Millennial parents) in the U.S. and U.K., the majority of children in the U.S. watch content with subtitles or closed captions all or most of the time, and half of kids in both countries need subtitles to enjoy the content they are watching,” the blog post noted. 

“Watching content with closed captions can reportedly improve literacy, vocabulary, and the speed of reading,” the researchers added. “For kids’ media brands, the widespread use of closed captions should be a sign to improve accuracy and make sure subtitles are available for all programs.”

Interest in foreign language shows is another factor, with the success of “Squid Game” on Netflix being only one example of a foreign language film attracting large U.S. audiences. 

The YPulse’s Local/Global Citizenship report data found that 76% of Gen Z and Millennials agree with the statement: “It doesn’t matter what country a TV show / movie is from, if it’s good I’ll watch it.” 

Another key factor is the popularity of subtitles on Gen Z’s favorite social media platform TikTok, YPulse reported. 

More information can be found here.  

NEW SOUTH WALES, Australia—Captioning expert Ai-Media has launched LEXI 3.0, an improved version of its flagship automatic captioning solution, with new features and enhancements that make it an accurate, automatic captioning solution capable of delivering results that rival human-generated captions for a lower cost.

Independent audits confirm LEXI 3.0 consistently delivers results with 35% fewer recognition, formatting and punctuation errors than the previous version, the company said.

The latest version introduces new automated features, including speaker identification and AI-powered caption placement to avoid on-screen interference. The release boosts average quality results from 98.2% to 98.7% Number, Edition Error and Recognition Error (NER), it said. 

An on-demand solution, LEXI 3.0 is well-suited for live captioning a wide range of content, including linear TV broadcasts, OTT, live sports, live streams, meetings, events and lectures, it said.

“Twenty years in the making, we’ve finally cracked the holy grail of making live automatic captioning a reality. LEXI 3.0 is a gamechanger,” said company co-founder and CEO Tony Abrahams. “We’re seeing accelerating adoption of automatic captioning driven by significant increase in quality, reduction in latency and release of new AI features that previously required manual intervention, such as speaker changes and placement of captions to not obscure important visuals.”

LEXI 3.0 is available immediately for existing Ai-Media customers at no additional cost and is delivered with any iCap Encoder (Hardware, Alta and Falcon) connected to Ai-Media’s iCap Cloud Network, the company said. 

More information is available on the company’s website. 

TEL AVIV, Israel—Media localization tool developer OOONA has launched a mobile app for iOS and Android to help translators and their managers work remotely via a simple, intuitive addition to the OONA integrated platform, the company said today.

Accessible via OOONA Integrated user accounts, the app allows translators and project managers to manage urgent and live work scheduling fully remotely. Managers can view orders and tasks as well as assign and reassign work. The app also pops up urgent jobs on the mobile phones of translators when the feature is enabled for prompt assignment of resources, the company said.

“Even before COVID, our global workforce needed the ability to respond quickly to new and existing clients with new and changing project demands and deadlines," says Tony Cleveland, Chief Technology Officer of Captionmax, which partnered with OOONA to develop the app. 

Localization turnaround times are accelerating to speed time to market. As a result, urgent project allocation is now standard in production pipelines. The OOONA app allows users to complete short tasks quickly and painlessly at any time or location, the company said.

“Users are able to view dashboards, confirm assignments and answer requests, as well as set a ‘quiet’ time when they do not want notifications from the app distracting them,” said the company’s integrated product manager Maya Venturero.

Captionmax’ talent pool is expanding around the globe, and the OONA app will make it easier to bring resources to bear, said Truck Morrison, Captionmax CEO. "Advising OOONA on our functionality requirement resulted in a solution we will put into action immediately."

More information is available on the company’s website.

We all enjoy audio books, but have you ever tried watching your favorite television program muted?

Audio is a very important ingredient of any audio visual media. It is that one ingredient that brings the entire content to life; otherwise it would be lifeless motion jpegs. But many times audio doesn’t get the full attention it deserves in the media workflow because of the misconception that delivering a superior consumer experience is driven by video only. While visuals are captivating, audio is also vital. If audio quality isn’t good, then even the best quality video will lead to a negative experience. Poor quality audio shifts consumer attention to noises and other types of distractions, impacting the overall experience.

AUDIO IN SPORTS

Looking exclusively at sports, content is generously interspersed with commentary—it’s a way to provide otherwise inaccessible information to viewers in a timely manner, enhancing their viewing experience. Viewers are generally interested in knowing important information not covered by the live camera angle, such as how the injured player is recovering, and whether the crowd is friendly or not. There are many things commentators can see and tell the audience besides sharing interesting facts and trivia in order to make experiences more memorable.

Further, the ability to hear clear game sounds makes fans feel as if they are viewing the game right in the stadium. Just imagine hearing the sounds of skates grinding into the ice in hockey or figure skating, the crack of a baseball bat hitting a homerun and a ping pong ball hitting a paddle. Audio quality in these situations is paramount. Not to forget, the sports sector is a big business, worth tens of billions of dollars worldwide. Digitization is further driving the revenue for global broadcast rights, but today’s digital consumers are spoiled with so many choices and susceptible to clicking away at a moment’s notice. Any slack in audio quality can lead to a loss of viewership and revenue. So it’s important now more than ever to understand how to uphold audio quality and create an immersive sports experience.

THE CHALLENGES

Unspoken guidelines exist for good audio quality. For instance, audio should be in sync with video and captions. It should be free of any artifact like noise, dropout, jitter and echo. It should follow the appropriate loudness guideline for that region. Some broadcasters would also require removing profanity from the audio. In the case of multilingual global delivery, correct audio language order needs to be ensured. To some extent these guidelines are easy to maintain for offline content, but sports—with all its frenzy and excitement—is broadcast live. The content is produced and broadcast simultaneously, leaving little room for quality control and correction. Knowing this, there are many different issues that can impact sports audio.

AUDIO QUALITY

• Sports broadcast experiences, by their very nature, feature high-intensity events like scoring a goal in a soccer match, which momentarily changes the loudness level. As the next generation of sports broadcasting experiences is being defined, it is important to ensure that high-quality audio experiences conform to loudness regulations:
• • Regional guidelines: Broadcasters should ensure content loudness complies with various regional regulatory standards like CALM in the U.S., EBU in Europe and ARIB in Japan.
  • Ad switching: When broadcasters insert advertisements in content for monetization purposes, it changes the context of the content and likely changes the loudness level. The broadcaster should ensure that the switch is seamless to ensure a smooth listening experience.

• Any noise in audio can distract viewers, thus degrading the overall viewer experience. There could be multiple sources for such noises.
• • To enhance viewer experiences, broadcasters want to simulate the sports-arena-like environment with the predominant sound components containing audience voice, reverberation and stadium music. To capture all of the important components, broadcasters typically use multiple microphones strategically placed all over the stadium and mix them along with the running commentary. During the mixing process, it is very important to ensure that channel layout is followed properly. For example, if the center channel contains dialog, it should remain the same even after the mixing process. Any glitch here can severely impact the audio quality.
  • The biggest challenge during commentary is clear audio. This is the stage where different noises such as background and echo can be introduced into the content. The scene of action is generally an outdoor area. Weather, wind, cheers from the audience and many other subtle factors can also allow various noises to creep into the content. These noises need to be suppressed before content is sent upstream. Data transmission over a slow network also causes multiple issues such as audio dropout and jittering noise. The advent of OTT resolves most of these issues, as viewers automatically switch to a lower bandwidth in the case of a slow network.

Broadcasters should ensure that sports workflows are efficient to avoid the above kind of noises.

• During live broadcasting, some audio segments may contain strong language, which can offend viewers and is especially unsuitable for children. These audio portions should be bleeped out before broadcasting, depending on the regulations. Broadcasters are required to integrate automatic speech recognition-based solutions to handle this scenario in a real-time manner and keep broadcasting delay to minimum.
• As content goes global, overcoming the language barrier has become very important. To meet this requirement, OTT companies are now providing content in multiple languages. Different language variations of content are stored as a separate audio track. Broadcasters should ensure that the correct language order is maintained during encoding and transmission.
• The latest smart TVs and digital media players support next-gen audio tech, such as Dolby Atmos, and raise consumer expectations. Streaming platform companies are also beginning to appreciate the need to invest in resources to improve audio quality and provide near-real-word experiences to consumers by leveraging the latest technologies.

AUDIO/VIDEO SYNCHRONIZATION

Synchronization is one of the most important aspects of the viewer experience. Imagine watching a basketball game, and the sound of the ball hitting the court arrives before the ball actually makes contact. This would be extremely annoying for the viewer and would detract from the overall consumer entertainment experience. Synchronization errors can happen because of video as well as multilingual audio tracks. Sync loss could be caused by the mixing/editing process, mic position or even signal processing delays between the mic and camera. To provide a seamless viewing experience, broadcasters should prevent these types of synchronization issues.

AUDIO AND CAPTION SYNCHRONIZATION

Captions are required by all major broadcasters and are legally regulated around the world. Captions need to be in sync with audio on all fronts. To meet regulations and assure a good consumer experience there is a four-point regulation from the Federal Communications Commission:

• Captions should be in perfect sync with audio (i.e., they should be displayed when the corresponding audio event occurs). Certain lag is allowed in real-time broadcast but if captions arrive too late they lose their merit and often become confusing to viewers.
• Captions should be free of spelling mistakes and other inaccuracies such as grammatical and syntactical mistakes. This requires captioners to be well versed with sports jargon, player names and have exceptionally good language and keyboard skills.
• Captions should be complete (i.e., complete audio needs to be captioned). This is very difficult, as with fast-paced sports sometimes the events take place at a speed that cannot be matched by captioners.
• While deciding screen placement for captions, care should be taken so that important statistics displayed on screen are not hidden.

Further, profanity might require some censorship. Some checks are required during encoding as well checking the correct language against the correct audio track and so on.

In a real-time sports broadcast there is a very small window between the words being spoken and relayed as captions. Audio needs to be transcribed, time stamped and screen positioned within this small window. Doing it manually may not lead to high quality. It calls for using the latest technology in speech recognition and burnt-in text recognition to aid captioners.

CONCLUSION

With huge global sporting events taking place in Tokyo and across Europe in the shape of the soccer championships in 2020, the choice for how and where viewers watch sports is going to be greater than ever. Broadcast rights are soaring and there is extensive competition among OTT services, so the pressure to retain viewers is monumental.

Much like the competition on the football pitch, the stakes are high for content producers and broadcasters to deliver exceptional quality—both visually and in terms of audio. A quality control system designed to address the challenges of real-time sports broadcasts can be a game-changer. One that enables service providers to perform comprehensive video and audio checks, including loudness, closed caption and subtitle checks, as well as audio language detection and AV sync, and one that features a flexible and scalable architecture that improves efficiencies and provides exceptional audio-video quality on every device.

Manik Gupta is associate director of engineering at Interra Systems.

FARMINGDALE, N.Y.—EEG’s iCap real-time captioning system is now available within Imagine Communications’ VersioCloud platform, the two companies recently announced. Integrating EEG’s IP captioning system with the IP-enabled playout in the cloud platform from Imagine provides broadcasters with a new tool for channel playout in the cloud.

To access this collaboration, broadcasters who use the VersioCloud system can purchase an iCap account from EEG to gain instant access to iCap-ready professional captioners. This allows media creators to accompany content played via the cloud with broadcast-grade captioning.

EEG is a provider of closed-captioning systems based in Farmingdale, N.Y. Imagine Communications is a provider of video infrastructure, advertising systems and workflow management systems and is headquartered in Frisco, Texas.