Blog Articles

There’s a lot of talk about AI in interpretation right now. Some of it is exciting. Some of it creates confusion.

Speech technology has come a long way. We’re seeing real-time captions, multilingual voiceovers, and live translation become more common. But somewhere along the way, people started to assume that AI can handle everything — even interpretation.

Simultaneous interpretation (SI) is the process of conveying a speaker’s message from one language to another in real time. Unlike consecutive interpreting, where the speaker must pause to allow for interpretation, simultaneous interpretation ensures a seamless and continuous flow of speech. This makes it the preferred choice for conferences, live events, and multilingual meetings where communication must remain unbroken.

Whether you are a content creator, event manager, meeting organiser, or busy professional, adding subtitles or closed captions to your live content and videos is a game-changer.

A recent study by UK charity Stagetext reports that four out of five young people use subtitles when they watch TV. The charity's research further suggested an average of 31% of people would go to more live events if more had captions on a screen in the venue.

Subtitling and captioning have begun to shape a new norm of how people consume videos and live content. But as soon as words start appearing on video screens, many people tend to use the terms captions and subtitles interchangeably.

Let's look at subtitles and captions in-depth: What are they, and how do they differ?

In this article, we’re going to look at the differences between subtitles, and captioning, and what their best use case is.

In this article:

1. Captioning

1.1. What is captioning?

1.2. The benefits of captions

1.3. Where captions can be used

1.4. How people access captions

1.5. Types of captions

1.6. How captions are generated

2. Subtitles

2.1. What are subtitles?

2.2. Types of subtitles

2.3. The benefits of subtitles

2.4. Where subtitles can be used

2.5 How subtitles are generated

3. The differences between captions and subtitles

4. Blurring the lines

The new norm of global web conferencing has made it as easy as never before to connect with global peers and audiences. But when it comes to hosting multilingual conferences online, there are a few common rookie mistakes, that can stand in the way of your success.

With more events move online, event organisers and managers of traditionally “offline” events are coming to realise that the landscape is much different.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world irrevocably, forcing almost every industry to rapidly adopt online technology to continue operations.

And it’s no different for the translation and interpretation market.

In light of the challenges presented by COVID-19, more and more events are taking place online.

As an industry that relies upon travel and thrives on face-to-face interactions (conferences, seminars and talks), the coronavirus is a pressing concern for many event management professionals and delegates alike.

Perhaps in no other area is this change as evident as in technology. As the global economy slipped into the most profound recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, century-old financial institutions and industrial hegemons that harvested immeasurable power and wealth were lost into a seemingly bottomless credit sinkhole.