YouTube has started to offer captions - using a Stoke EDF, Staffs Police video to illustrate

Last night I noticed a rather nifty new feature on You Tube, certain videos have started to offer subtitles (or closed captions if your a yank). This fabulous new feature is going to make watching youtube for users with hearing difficulties, rubbish speakers, or office workers not wanting everyone knowing they are watching you tube to be able to read what's going on.

 The video below demonstrates this perfectly and also shows how to create captions for your video, either by hand or by using a piece of software recommend by YouTube called Subtitle workshop, which transcribes for you.

 However not all is perfect just yet, as it looks like Staffs Police are making use of this software. Overall I was impressed, but every now and then things went a bit wrong. For example:

 Spoke Word: "the overall aim of todays operation was public safety"

 Close Caption: "the overall aim of todays operation with cope with dixie"

!!!! who is this dixie and did they cope?

To me the problem was quite humorous, and maybe to a lip reader if the speaker is on screen the problem caption can be worked out. But to someone whose not a lip reader, they might find grounds to complain.

You'll have to watch the video on youtube, by clicking the video, once, and then once again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmtEPPaQci0