Why good subtitles are essential

Subtitled content empowers viewers to have a better, more consistent viewing experience. If you’re watching a video that has dramatically different sound levels, you can turn on the subtitles and enjoy it without having to change the volume every time the on-screen action shifts. Or consider the fact that many modern films have dialogue audio that struggles under the weight of too many tracks. This has frustrated many viewers since they can’t make out the actors’ and actresses’ words. Fortunately, with subtitles, this isn’t a problem.

Subtitles and captions don’t just help you with audio that isn’t mixed well though. It can also allow viewers to enjoy content if they’re in sound-sensitive or particularly noisy environments. For example, riding public transportation is convenient and cost-effective, but it’s not the best place to consume video content. With subtitles, you can watch videos without interrupting those around you or struggling to hear what’s being said over the sound of surrounding conversations.

Beyond this, subtitles make it easier to watch videos that include complicated terminology, unusual dialects, and uncommon names. These kinds of unfamiliar words and speech patterns can be difficult to understand and keep straight. By providing visual subtitles, viewers have the benefit of getting another one of the five senses involved. This dramatically increases intelligibility, memorability, and overall comprehension. So, whether your videos are overloaded with sound tracks or filled with strange words and dialects, creating subtitles for them will ensure your viewers get a better, more consistent viewing experience.

Research from around the world has shown that captions have the ability to boost literacy and reading comprehension. And this isn’t just true of teachers who show their students videos that include captions. There are over one-hundred empirical studies that have shown the benefit of captions for every demographic, from children to adults. Captions have been proven to boost the attention to, comprehension of, and memory of video content. And while this is true of videos that are in the viewer’s native language, it’s even truer for foreign language learners.

In addition to helping with reading comprehension, captions can also help students in several ways, including expanding their vocabulary. When hearing new words, it’s easy to misunderstand and misinterpret what’s being said. But when those new words are accompanied by text captions, they become clearer. They also give the viewer an opportunity to stop the video, look it up in a dictionary, or write it down. This is an especially helpful tool for teachers who want to introduce vocabulary or language concepts in the context of real life conversations. And since it’s so easy to find captioned video content, they’ll never run out of great material to use. Plus, they can use a service like Scriptix to add accurate subtitles to any content they create for their classes.

Learning a second language is one of those things that most people would like to do – but which can seem too daunting to actually achieve. After all, there’s countless vocabulary words to learn, new grammar rules to follow, and unfamiliar sounds to get used to. These challenges hold back countless would-be language learners and global travelers.

Fortunately, captions can play an important role in an effective language learning strategy. If you’re going to really learn a language, you’ll need to immerse yourself in it as much as possible. After all, a good textbook can only take you so far. Fortunately, subtitled video content can give you an infinite number of resources to hone your language skills. And with Scriptix, it’s never been easier to create subtitles.

Studies have shown tremendous benefits to watching content in your target language while reading subtitles in the same language. This gets more than just your ears working, and it leads to a greater association of the language’s sounds with the way it’s written. In addition, it’s a great way to learn those vocabulary words effortlessly since you’ll see and hear them in context at the same time. Once you’ve got a decent grasp on the language you want to learn, subtitled video content is the best way to practice short of having a conversation with a native speaker.

But that’s not the only benefit that subtitles offer the aspiring international traveler. They also open up a mountain of video content that would normally only be accessible to those who speak the language fluently. This allows you to watch the kind of content that reveals cultural practices and ideas before you fully understand the language. And because of this, it connects you to the culture in a unique way.

Successful websites are built on quality SEO and thoughtful accessibility. And surprisingly, subtitles and captions can help on both fronts.

If you’ve got video content on your website, you need to have it transcribed with Scriptix. Once you have the transcription, you can use it to improve your SEO score in several different ways. For example, you can embed the video onto a post and include the transcription below it. The transcription is sure to include plenty of valuable keywords for search engines to notice. On the other hand, you can simply create captions for your video and get much the same effect. While search engines won’t be able to listen to your video for keywords and phrases, they can comb through the subtitles. So, by including accurate subtitles in your video content, you’ll ensure that your SEO score goes up and more people visit your site organically.

In addition to getting a boosted SEO score, subtitles also increase the accessibility of your site. If you get deaf or hearing impaired on your website, subtitling your content will allow them to access it like everyone else. Subtitles also make your content more accessible for people who are in noisy environments or in situations where they can’t play your video’s audio. And subtitling it is easy with Scriptix. We can create an accurate, automatically generated transcription that can then be incorporated into your video as subtitles.

Subtitles are a great tool for all kinds of students – and not just for the way they can improve literacy. Students in high school and college can take advantage of subtitled content in a number of other valuable ways.

Many modern schools are providing online lectures and other educational content for students to watch at their leisure. If those lectures are subtitled, students can access them in more places. They can improve their memory of the content by watching and listening at the same time. And as we noted earlier, they can pause the video and look up words and terms that are unfamiliar. But there is another, even more creative way that subtitles can be used to enhance education.

If a school chooses to provide students with pre-recorded lectures and other educational content, they can have everything automatically transcribed with Scriptix. Then, they can create captions for those videos that allow them to be archived. Once they’re safely archived, students can search it for specific words and phrases. This makes it possible to make educational content more available than ever before.

It’s well known among digital marketers that subtitles can provide a major boost to video engagement online. There have been numerous studies showing the benefits of captions for user engagement.

For example, Facebook’s metrics reveal that 85% of video content is watched without sound. So, when captions are added to a video, view time is increased by an average of 12%. Another recent study found that viewers are 80% likelier to watch a video to completion when the video included captions. To put it simply, subtitles will draw viewers in, keep them longer, and lead to higher levels of engagement.

If you’re a content creator, then you know the challenges that come with releasing quality content on a regular schedule. Fortunately, there is a way to multiply your efforts and increase your audience by repurposing content.

Imagine doing research, writing a script, and producing a video for YouTube. By the time you’re finished, you’ve spent hours getting it perfect. And you’ll enjoy a significant reach if that’s as far as you go. But what if you were to take that video and have it transcribed through a service like

Many organizations are required by law to adhere to certain digital accessibility regulations. This is especially true for public institutions, including governmental agencies, local municipalities, and many within the legal system. For these institutions, subtitles aren’t just a nice extra. They’re a legal requirement.

By subtitling public content like council meetings, public organizations ensure that their data and services are accessible to all interested parties. Hearing disabilities shouldn’t hinder a citizen from knowing what is going on in the halls of his government. And with subtitles, they don’t have to.