Subtitles: the three ways of doing it

Subtitles are a legal accessibility requirement for many channels. AURA covers them three ways, and it is worth not confusing them.

1. Automatic file detection

If there is an .srt or .vtt next to the video with the same name, AURA finds it and airs it. Nothing to tell it. It also recognises .spa.srt and .es.srt, and it respects the clip's trim-in.

2. Speech transcription

If there is no file, AURA generates one. It works in the background at low priority, and starts long before the programme reaches air. The engine runs on-device: your content never leaves the station.

You install it from Settings → SUBTITLES, with a download button. The language model lives outside the application folder, so it survives updates.

Generating the subtitle and airing it are two different things. Even with transcription running, you will see nothing until you switch on one of the two output paths.

3. The two output paths

Burned into the picture. The text is drawn over the video as it airs. The original file is untouched. Always visible, with nothing for the viewer to do.

Closed (teletext page 888). They travel hidden in the signal and the viewer turns them on with the subtitle button on the remote, as on the major networks.

Closed captions over SDI are written to standard and do not disturb transmission, but they have not yet been validated against an analyser or a television set. When they are, it will be announced in the community.

Where it is decided

Per channel (the two paths separately), per category and per individual programme. The most specific wins.

An honest warning

Speech recognition sometimes gets stuck on music and repeats a phrase in a loop. AURA reviews the result before accepting it and cuts those repetitions; if nothing usable is left, it discards the transcription and says so in the log. We would rather not subtitle than subtitle badly.