Optimising subtitle reception: subtitles for all
Large scale user evaluation of subtitles
in seven European countries
Pablo Romero-Fresco (Roehampton University, Transmedia Catalonia)
Henrik Gottlieb (University of Copenhagen)
Agnieszka Szarkowska (University of Warsaw)
Veronica Arnaiz (Universidad de Valladolid)
Carlo Eugeni (Intersteno)
Quality in SDH
 Analysing reception by deaf, HoH and hearing viewers
 Countries involved:
UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Germany, Greece
Looking at
 Opinion through surveys
 Comprehension through questionnaires
 Perception through eye-tracking
Quality in SDH
 Surveys to find out what users think
 Questionnaires to find out what users understand
 Eye-tracking to find out what users see
General figures
 Opinion (surveys)
- 1,400 participants
- 85,000 questions (12,000 per country)
 Comprehension (questionnaires)
- 70 questions per participant
- 12,600 questions
 Perception (eye-tracking)
- 83,000 subtitles
- 4,140 minutes
Common conclusions
 Quantity: still an issue
 Quality: country per country basis
 Live subtitling is an issue across the board.
- video delay as a solution?
 Time to revise current guidelines
 More reception and eye-tracking research needed for
– SDH
– Live subtitling
– Interlingual subtitling
Denmark
 Interlingual bona fide subtitling:
General satisfaction, but Deaf & HoH need nonverbal info
Hearing want ’better’ translations, yet enough time to
read
 Intralingual bona fide subtitling:
More viewers would benefit if they knew
Deaf & HoH want names or colors, plus sound sources
Deaf want everything subtitled
HoH want subtitles in sync with dialog
 Intralingual live subtitling:
Many still don’t know this service
Some dissatisfaction (lack of synchrony)
Poland
SDH shown in
 Public television (TVP) on its two channels
TVP1 and TVP2
– 2009: ca. 8% broadcast time
– 2010: ca. 4% broadcast time
 Films, soaps, TV series, current affairs
programmes, documentaries
+ one news programme per day
 Intra- and interlingual
Poland
 First priority: increase in SDH provision
– Currently:
8% of two major public TV channels [TVP1
and TVP2], including repeats
– No road map for accessibility
– Viewers in favour of paying license fee if SDH provision is
guaranteed
 Most viewers strongly against editing in SDH
Spain
 Spain – 45m people
– deaf – 1,000,000
– (deaf & hard of hearing – 4,000,000)
 Spanish AVT landscape
– Dubbing on TV
– Analogue switch-over (2009-2010)
– Ley General del Audiovisual
Spain
Ident.
Place.
Justi.
Boxes Border Shad. Emot.
Icons Speed
Hearers Colour Top
Centre No
Box
Border
Shad. Descr.
Deaf
Centre No
Box
No
Border
No
Descr./ Descr Stand.
Shad. (Emot.) .
Left
Border
Shad. (Emot.) Descr Stand.
.
Colour Bottom
Hard of Colour Mixed
Hearing
No
Box
Descr Stand.
.
Italy
• Deaf go by habits
• Hearers go by aesthetics
• Hard-of-Hearing go by usefulness
• Difficulties noticing presence of ≠ techniques
Comprehension:
• Hearers understand more thanks to audio
• > visual for Deaf
• > textual for H and HoH
UK
Deaf viewers seem to be more
-resourceful
-knowledgeable
-open to changes
than hard of hearing viewers when it comes to SDH
- DVD subtitles seen as more reliable
- TV subtitles preferred when no technical problems are
involved
- Edited vs verbatim: slight preference for verbatim SDH
UK
Live subtitles:
- Unawareness/Unrealistic expectations regarding speech
recognition
- Concern about delay / errors
 DTV4ALL + BBC: Documentary on live subtitling
 Recommendations applied by Swiss TxT in Switzerland
 Delayed signal? Perhaps at the viewers’end?
Pre-recorded subtitles:
- Lack of availability in digital channels (US, +1, etc.)
- HoH: complaints about editing and lack of synchrony
- Viewers can cope with different conventions
The Reception of SDH in Europe
Contents
1.Introduction…………
2. Spain………………
3. Poland................................
4. Italy ....................................
5. Greece...............................
6. Germany............................
7. UK......................................
8. Denmark............................
9. Conclusions...........................
The Reception of SDH in Europe
Questions................................
Suggestions...........................
Thank you!