[Update] Youtube Bilingual Subtitles v1.2 (Patreon)

Fix YouTube subtitle segmentation

Users who have experience with YouTube subtitles may be aware that the automatically generated subtitles often suffer from sentence-breaking issues, where multiple sentences are concatenated, leading to a suboptimal language learning experience. Additionally, since translated subtitles are directly derived from these original subtitles, the same problem extends to translated subtitles, such as those in Chinese.

I previously developed the Listen and Repeat - Language Learning plugin last year in an attempt to address this problem. The solution involved allowing users to manually handle the issue by dragging and dropping subtitles. This method now appears impractical and also wastes users' valuable time. With the advent of AI, we can easily resolve this problem.

To begin, users need to select "Generate Subtitles (ybs)" from the subtitle menu, and the plugin will send a request to the server to process these subtitles.

After processing, the subtitles will form complete sentences, with added punctuation, enhancing the reading experience.

Translation

Having addressed the issue of sentence breaks, we can further improve the translation quality. We provide a service that translates English into other languages. The following is a comparison between automatically generated subtitles and corrected subtitles:

In addition to these two primary functions, we have also implemented the following updates to the plugin:

Abandoning Native Menu Integration

Due to a high failure rate with native menu integration, we have moved the menu outside the player.

Correcting Traditional Chinese Subtitles

There is an issue with automatically generated subtitles in Traditional Chinese on YouTube, where subtitles play too quickly at the beginning. We have converted Simplified Chinese subtitles as an alternative solution.

Q&A:

1. What does it mean when the subtitles show "Generating" after clicking the generate subtitles button?

This indicates that the server is processing your request. If it shows "Queuing," it means other users' requests are waiting to be processed. If you leave or switch videos during the queue, the system will automatically skip your request.

2. Why does translation take so long?

Currently, our translation function is processed by our built servers. With our current computing power, translating a 50-minute video from English to Chinese takes about 25 seconds. If there are many users in the queue, the wait time will be longer.

Why don't we use other translation services (like Google Translate)?

This is because the cost of translation services is high, and at present, we find it challenging to afford these expenses. Considering that most of our users are students and the videos that need translation are likely long online courses, we chose to build servers for in-house processing. The trade-off is slower processing, but it can be provided unlimitedly. With your support, we can gradually improve our hardware specifications and computing capabilities.

3. Is it safe to send data to your server?

The plugin only sends request messages containing video IDs and does not send any user-related data. We also do not store any records, including request sources and IP addresses.

4. Why can't I find the option to generate subtitles for some videos?

Currently, only subtitles that offer automatic generation (English) can use the sentence correction and translation functions. In the future, we will support more languages for automatic subtitle generation, such as Japanese, Spanish, and more.

5. Why am I subscribed to Netflix bilingual subtitles while you are developing YouTube bilingual subtitles?

Netflix bilingual subtitles have been available for two years, and we have been contemplating new features, with the dictation mode being one of them. Some features are well-implemented by other plugins, and we don't want to replicate those functionalities. Considering that most of our users are language learners, we believe that developing YouTube bilingual subtitles will be highly beneficial. There are many more learning videos on YouTube compared to Netflix, and the only drawback is that the built-in subtitles are not conducive to learning. We hope to address this issue to help our users learn languages more effectively.