Discussion

What control features would you like to have for auto-generated captions on Internet video?

Did you know that there are keyboard shortcuts for adjusting YouTube captions and that you can reposition where auto-generated captions are displayed on a YouTube video? 


For YouTube auto-generated captions, you can:

Use your C key to turn captions on or off.

Use the + (plus) key to increase the size of the captions.

Use the – (minus) key to decrease the size of the captions.

Use your mouse to drag captions and place them in a different location on the video screen.


What other control features would you like to have for auto-generated captions on Internet video?

Comments

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Submitted by Andrea Kaneb on Mon, 08/28/2023 - 12:28 pm EDT

Sometimes I need to go back a few sentences to grasp something and I wish I could control the number of lines of text displayed. Sometimes I display the full transcript off to the side to do this. Other common features like text and background color, opacity and size are always good to have as well.

Captions are improving all the time and yet so often I find they are unavailable on Internet videos. It's so hit or miss on Twitter and other platforms. I don't understand why auto-generated captions, even when imperfect, are so optional to content creators when they are such an important accessibility feature to so many with hearing loss and the Deaf.

I struggle to hear my three-year-old granddaughter's sweet little voice so my daughter-in-law always turns on the auto-generated captions when she posts videos to Instagram of my granddaughter. There is editing capability as well. I don't think most people are aware of how to do this or how helpful it is.

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Profile picture for user ICAAT
Submitted by ICAAT Tech Forum on Wed, 08/30/2023 - 6:54 am EDT

Hi Andrea,

Have you tried Google's Live Caption in your Chrome browser? You can quickly change the number of lines displayed using the arrow at the bottom of the Live Caption display to expand and collapse the text box. On the laptop we tried, the text box went from a 2-line display to an 8-line display when clicking on the arrow to expand the text box. You can find out more about Live Caption for media you play in your Chrome browser here: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/10538231?hl=en

Is this the kind of control you would like to have over the number of lines of text displayed for auto-generated captions on Internet video? If you try this accessibility feature, please let us know what you think.

-The ICAAT Team

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