Widening web video access

Jul 2 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

THE man who wrote subtitles for James Bond, Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer has launched the first company in the world to specialise in subtitles and captions for web video.

Gateshead entrepreneur Rob Colling has spent a decade writing subtitles for clients such as Twentieth Century Fox, Disney and Universal.

His work has appeared on hit TV series including The X-Files, ER, 24, Lost, all three Pirates of the Caribbean and Bourne trilogy movies and 17 Bond films.

Now the 35-year-old has launched internetsubtitling.com, a company which supplies closed captions and subtitles for web videos.

Mr Colling said the new business would help make web videos accessible to millions of people around the world who suffer from hearing impediments.

He said: “Nine million people in the UK and 35 million in the US have a hearing impairment. If you have a website, that’s around one in seven of your audience who may not be able to understand what’s going on.

“Think about all the other viewers who need to watch without sound. Maybe they’re in an office, an internet café or a library, or maybe they’re in a really noisy environment like an airport, a school or a train station.

“By adding captions, or subtitles for foreign language speakers, you open up your clips to millions more people.”

The company hopes to win contracts from businesses, schools, health trusts, charities and non-profits, and local and national government bodies.

It will charge £10 for every minute of footage which is subtitled, while the subtitles can be switched on or off easily.

“Recently there’s been a massive increase in web video and all the old-style subtitling and captioning firms have been caught napping.

“They’re trying to make their existing business model work on the internet, which it doesn’t, and their prices are way too high. Internetsubtitling.com only deals with web video, so we can keep our overheads extremely low. Our services are very affordable.”

Internetsubtitling.com is working with clients around the UK and is currently creating captions for the web footage of the recent Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead.

The firm, which says it uses the skills of a ‘dream team’ of some of the world’s best subtitlers, captioners and translators, currently consists of a network of home workers and freelancers. But it hopes to take on substantial numbers of full-time staff within a few years as its business grows.