A Showdown: Auto-generated Captions vs. Edited Captions
In today’s digital media landscape, captions are a must-have for content creators. The debate over auto-generated captions versus edited captions is one that has been raging on for years. There was even a campaign to end “Craptions” on YouTube (#NoMoreCraptions).
Advantages & Disadvantages to Auto-Generated Captioning
I turned off the “auto-generated” captions feature in Instagram. It was on for a while, and ultimately became frustrated with the lack of control that auto-generated captions gave me. It would often overlap existing captioning that was created by the creator which made it so much harder to read. It also overlapped the captions in stories, and I just couldn’t read them. Sometimes I would notice that the auto-generated captions would take a while to show up, and even then it was often not accurate.
This is not to say that auto-generated captions shouldn’t ever be used. It’s been great during live Zoom sessions where I can follow along much easier. If i notice something’s off, I can easily ask the person to repeat what they’ve said. The biggest to using auto-generated captions is accuracy; machines have difficulty recognizing certain dialects, accents (such as mine!), and words, leading to errors in the generated text. This can be especially problematic if you are using auto captions in a professional setting where accuracy is paramount.
Advantages & Disadvantages to Manually Edited Captions
On the other hand, edited captions require more manual effort but they also provide higher levels of accuracy than auto-generated captions. When creating edited captions, you can take the time necessary to ensure that all words and phrases are correctly spelled and punctuated—something that is often not possible with auto-generated captions. The downside of this approach is that it takes longer and requires more effort than simply relying on an automated system like auto captioning does.
I am always consistently recommending Otter.ai* to create captioning & transcripts. It’s affordable, fast, gives you both .srt files as well as .docx so you can utilize the transcript in multiple different ways.
Auto-generated captioning might be faster but edited captioning might produce better results in terms of accuracy. Don't let your effort go to waste! Investing in high quality captioning will return the favor by providing a more enjoyable and accessible experience for both you and your viewers/listeners.
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