Mar 18, 2021 15:00:00

Chrome 89 has added an 'automatic subtitle wakeup' function that generates subtitles from audio in real time, so I tried using it

It is revealed that the stable version of the desktop version of Google Chrome 89 released on March 3, 2021 has added an 'automatic subtitle wakeup' function that generates subtitles in real time from audio and movies played on the browser. Now that it's gone, I tried to use what it actually looks like.

Google's Live Caption feature rolling out for Chrome desktop users
https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-live-caption-feature-rolls-out-transcribe-speech-videos/

Google's Live Caption is now rolling out to Chrome on desktop | Android Central
https://www.androidcentral.com/googles-live-caption-comes-chrome-desktop-but-theres-catch

This automatic subtitle raising function was announced as a new function for Android at Google's developer event 'Google I / O 2019' held in May 2019.

Summary of 100 things Google announced at I / O 2019 --GIGAZINE

Google is working to introduce automatic subtitles to the desktop version of Chrome, and the beta version of Chrome released in 2020 secretly included the desktop version of automatic subtitles. However, the beta version of the automatic subtitle function is only experimental, and some bugs have been seen, so Android Central, which handles Android-related news, said, 'It takes time to officially release the automatic subtitle function. Probably after the second half of 2020. '

Actually, I tried to enable the automatic subtitle raising function in Chrome (64bit version) version 89.0.4389.82. Click the menu icon in the upper left of the browser and select 'Settings'.

Next, open 'Detailed Settings' in the left column, click 'Accessibility', and turn on the switch in 'Automatic Subtitle Raising' to download the voice recognition file and the reading file.

As a test, when Bill Gates plays '

Climate and the developing world ' that talks about climate change on Chrome, it looks like this. A semi-transparent window called 'Automatic Subtitle Transcription' will be launched in the browser, and the voice will be transcribed in real time. Since Chrome's automatic subtitle raising function targets 'movies and audio being played in the browser', it is a big point that subtitles can be added not only to YouTube but also to movies such as Twitter and Instagram.

Transcription accuracy is quite high. However, the operation is a little unstable, and the text flickers in some parts that are difficult to hear ...

In the next moment, it disappeared completely.

Also, Chrome's automatic subtitle raising function does not seem to support Japanese at the time of article creation.

When 'Prime Minister Suga Press Conference-March 5, 3rd year of Reiwa ' was played with the automatic subtitle transcription function turned on, 'newly infected person' was transcribed as 'think you concentrate'. It was interpreted as English.