Need Advice Hard-coded captions or YouTube native captions?

[SoyManuelMedina]

What do you think? I will write my findings after a few comments so I won't give you any ideas before answering.

 

[SILTHW]

I don't have an answer, but I have an experiment running right now on this. I'm staying away from hard-coded at the moment in favor of 3rd party captions in English and other languages.

I am really curious if hard-coded makes any difference at all.

 

[Shelly Saves the Day]

I avoid hard coded captions on YouTube since I donΓÇÖt want text covering potential text overlays or graphics. On vertical videos it can be a good way to take up additional space on screen if you donΓÇÖt want to completely crop and zoom widescreen videos. Plus, it can interfere with the captions, if additional ones are turned on or in other languages and I wouldnΓÇÖt want my burned in ones to make it more difficult for people trying to read captions in another language.

 

[SILTHW]

I avoid hard coded captions on YouTube since I donΓÇÖt want text covering potential text overlays or graphics. On vertical videos it can be a good way to take up additional space on screen if you donΓÇÖt want to completely crop and zoom widescreen videos. Plus, it can interfere with the captions, if additional ones are turned on or in other languages and I wouldnΓÇÖt want my burned in ones to make it more difficult for people trying to read captions in another language.

This has been my exact concern...

 

[EnglishwithLiz]

I avoid hard coded captions on YouTube since I donΓÇÖt want text covering potential text overlays or graphics. On vertical videos it can be a good way to take up additional space on screen if you donΓÇÖt want to completely crop and zoom widescreen videos. Plus, it can interfere with the captions, if additional ones are turned on or in other languages and I wouldnΓÇÖt want my burned in ones to make it more difficult for people trying to read captions in another language.

Great Answer

 

[Ikerot]

What do you think? I will write my findings after a few comments so I won't give you any ideas before answering.

I like the idea of it, but I also like the idea of just putting it in closed captions because that is another part of metadata for YT.

Maybe if it's for a social media video, but not on YT for me personally.

 

[SoyManuelMedina]

So I have a Spanish-language (mainly) channel on YouTube. I always hard-code my subtitles because for what I've seen, most people don't play videos with captions on, so if somebody is not speaking Spanish on my vide, users might just miss the subtitles option.

I would love for YouTube to play subtitles depending on the user's location/browser settings, etc, but for me right now there is no point of using the YouTube subtitles settings for my videos.

 

[Ikerot]

So I have a Spanish-language (mainly) channel on YouTube. I always hard-code my subtitles because for what I've seen, most people don't play videos with captions on, so if somebody is not speaking Spanish on my vide, users might just miss the subtitles option.

I would love for YouTube to play subtitles depending on the user's location/browser settings, etc, but for me right now there is no point of using the YouTube subtitles settings for my videos.

It's kinda like reminding people to like and subscribe. You have to remind them that there are subtitles and it's within the closed captions xD

 

[SILTHW]

So I have a Spanish-language (mainly) channel on YouTube. I always hard-code my subtitles because for what I've seen, most people don't play videos with captions on, so if somebody is not speaking Spanish on my vide, users might just miss the subtitles option.

I would love for YouTube to play subtitles depending on the user's location/browser settings, etc, but for me right now there is no point of using the YouTube subtitles settings for my videos.

Actually, IF they have their account configured to do so it will.

 

[Deciden0w]

Interesting, I think the captions generated by YT might be more important since its generated by them according to your video. As far as the caption putting my graphics behind..in my videos I just put them somewhere else. But this might not be applicable to everyone

 

[Beanie Draws]

Luckily for my content there's very little need for captions, so I just edit YouTube's native captions because YouTube's native captions aren't the best. You get some strange automated captions if you rely on just YouTube. And as Ike said, it's metadata. But I've never had any complaints about people not being able to understand what I'm saying. My videos are drawing based, so even if the viewer can't hear what I'm saying, they're not missing out on all that much.

Bob Ross's Twitch channel has them hard coded/burned in and they kind of compliment well, but if they're burned in, and in the "wrong" language, they only apply to say, 30-(however big your english audience is)

As Shelly pointed out, they can be good for vertical, and in some situations, can be done very creatively and artistically for the sake of social media and stories, besides, people are less likely to be listening with loud speakers on mobile, so if they don't have headphones, and they're walking about, having hard coded/burned in captions into your vertical videos and stories can be VERY useful visually.