YouTube Question The thread title is subtitle... or as Shakespeare might have put it... to Sub or not to Sub tis the question

[MaJ]

I know some of the more respected members here put time into subtitling their videos

Now that some of my videos are getting 1k+ views, I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth it

It seemed to take [if I remember the threads on here correctly] hours and hours to do the subs

So....

Q1. What's the easiest / quickest way to do subs?

Q2. Once done in English - will they translate automatically into other languages [which like in Google may not make total sense but enough for other speakers to get the drift]

Q3. What percentage of people actually use subs?

As I note my latest video - has 3k+ views [the most of any of my videos, though it is a very poor video compared to my usual output, but that's another story] has 0.2% people using the auto generated subs

I would guess they would have put it on... seen it was garbage - and if deaf - just switched off to another YT creator...

But if 0.2% want subtitles - how can it be worth the time [if it does take hours] that you could put into working on your next video????

Thanks for any discussion / help xxx

 

[BraveStar]

A1) The easiest I can think of is downloading the auto-captions from your YouTube video and editing it to ensure it matches the words from your video. Then upload it as a subtitle.

A2) I believe it only auto-generates the subtitles based on the language from the account.

A3) This one I am not sure of the answer but I believe the percentage is decent enough to want to have subtitles.

Hope this helps.

 

[MaJ]

Thanks

So I download YT's auto subs

Then change the words [correct them] and upload it as my own subtitle...

I guess I haven't done this before - I don't know how the timing is done... but I would hope that process could be done quickly

Thanks again x

 

[BraveStar]

Actually, upon further checking I believe you can actually edit it right within the Youtube Studios and save it as a separate subtitle of your own.

 

[Beanie Draws]

I know some of the more respected members here put time into subtitling their videos

Now that some of my videos are getting 1k+ views, I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth it

It seemed to take [if I remember the threads on here correctly] hours and hours to do the subs

So....

Q1. What's the easiest / quickest way to do subs?

Q2. Once done in English - will they translate automatically into other languages [which like in Google may not make total sense but enough for other speakers to get the drift]

Q3. What percentage of people actually use subs?

As I note my latest video - has 3k+ views [the most of any of my videos, though it is a very poor video compared to my usual output, but that's another story] has 0.2% people using the auto generated subs

I would guess they would have put it on... seen it was garbage - and if deaf - just switched off to another YT creator...

But if 0.2% want subtitles - how can it be worth the time [if it does take hours] that you could put into working on your next video????

Thanks for any discussion / help xxx

Q1. The "quickest" and "easiest" way to do subs is to get an external service to do them for you, i think there's rev dot com or something, they charge about a dollar per minute but I've never tried them. You could also do your subtitles while editing the video it'self BEFORE uploading (if your video editor allows for it)

Q2. No idea. I really should investigate this myself seems my 3 biggest audiences outside of America are non English speaking. But because I do art and I'm not often on camera, subtitles for me aren't super important because people can still SEE. But seems google's translation services are getting better, my guess is there's something in there that's native and automatic. You can kinda test it out by watching non English videos and see if there's an option to watch with english automatic captions.

Q3. do you mean on YouTube in general, or YOUR specific channel? For your specific channel you can find it in your analytics




Just remember, relying on automatic captions means you're relying on YouTube to get the correct words and not put words in there that you never put in there. I've found many instances of swear words and profanities and objectionable words that I never said in my auto captions. Some channels have had their videos age restricted because of some of the offensive words the auto captions have put in there. So relying on auto captions is always risky.

 

[Beanie Draws]

Actually, upon further checking I believe you can actually edit it right within the Youtube Studios and save it as a separate subtitle of your own.

YouTube have done a major overhaul of the subtitle editing, BUT there are still some major bugs in it, pressing enter doesn't split paragraphs the way you intend it to, merges paragraphs unintentionally, and the way to edit the timing is a little tricky to get the hang of right away, but I feel it will be a lot smoother in the coming weeks and months.