The Growing Importance and Future of SDH and Closed Captioning (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: You've measured how important it is to understand the needs of the deaf and the hard of hearing people. They have been using SDH or closed captioning for years. But now that there's more interest in SDH, that's perhaps because more hearing viewers also are starting to use it. Can you tell us perhaps about the benefits of SDH or captioning for viewers who do not have hearing loss?

Speaker 2: To me, it just allows them to see the content in an extremely different way. Because we take it for granted that we can hear the sound. And so it's great where you see people enjoying them. And like, see, it's funny when you see one that you've created that appears online and there are people going, this is an amazing way to describe this sound. It's great. But the reason I'm happy that those things are being publicised is because it really places a lot more spotlight on accessibility. And it puts it on a bigger stage. People are considering it more. And it means that then more thought will go into the training and more thought will go into the process. And it will probably directly impact on the quality of the content and the training that people who are creating these files have. And I think that's extremely important.

Speaker 1: Hopefully, it will also encourage more companies to subtitle their content, make it accessible, but also to make it more engaging for all the viewers. Regarding the future of SDH and closed captioning or other forms of accessibility in media, how do you see these services evolving in the future?

Speaker 2: Well, like I say, when there's people placing such importance on what it is that we've done for so long, I think it's only going to improve the provision available. And it's hopefully, like you say, going to expand the amount of content that has been made accessible. And I have seen it already since we've had the publicity for what it is that we've done. I've seen companies take notice a lot more and want to provide different levels of training for their linguists. And I am only going to stand up and applaud them for that and hopefully contribute and try and just build more skilled and more informed SDH creators.