Google confirmed during the I/O 2022 on May 11 that it's adding transcripts and auto-translated video captions for YouTube on mobile devices, with support for 16 languages.
YouTube New Features Help To Easily Navigate and Search
Google claimed in a blog that video is becoming a fundamental part of how we share information, communicate, and learn. They recognized that when you come to YouTube, you are looking for a specific moment in a video.
Ergo, Google wants to help you get there faster.
The inclusion of transcript and auto-translated video captions is part of Google's work to make YouTube videos easier to navigate and search, building on existing features like auto-generated chapters, according to Engadget.
Last year, Google launched the auto-generated chapters to make it easier to jump to the part you're most interested in.
Over the next year, the tech company has a plan to increase the number of YouTube videos with auto-generated chapters to 80 million from the current 8 million.
The new features are great for creators because it saves them time making chapters. Google is now applying multimodal technology from DeepMind, the company said in a blog. The technology simultaneously uses text, audio, and video to auto-generate chapters with greater accuracy and speed.
The updates to YouTube's auto-translation features come after Google removed community captions in 2020. This leaves some users high and dry, particularly in Japan and Korea.
However, by 2021, Google was openly experimenting with auto-translation tools on YouTube.
Next month, Google plans to add auto-translated captions to Ukrainian YouTube content as part of the company's larger effort to increase access to accurate information about the war.
Read Also: YouTube Offers Podcasters Up to $300K to Embrace Video Format
Transcripts and Auto-Translated Captions Are Useful for YouTube Mobile Users
One of YouTube's most useful features is the captions. There are times that we cannot hear a video's audio, and captions can help us by allowing us to watch a video even if your phone is muted.
Meanwhile, transcripts will be auto-generated using Google's speech recognition models, just like automatic captions, with the added difference that you'll be able to read them down in a list form similar to the auto-transcripts in the Google Recorder app, according to Android Police.
Another new feature that we're getting from Youtube is the auto-translated captions for Youtube mobile. This feature has been available for a long time on the web version of YouTube. According to Android Police, if a video has captions, you can go into its settings and tap on "Auto-translate," select your preferred language, and you'll have subtitles adapted to your language.
The new features are useful in a lot of scenarios. Since our phones are becoming one of the main ways to access YouTube, the fact that mobile users can now translate subtitles will help creators reach audiences from all around the world, regardless of what language they're speaking, as per Android Police.
YouTube is an American online video sharing and social media platform launched by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim on February 14, 2005. It is owned by Google, and it is the second most visited website, right after Google itself.
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