SubtitleFormatter: Making Subtitles Easier to Read for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Viewers on Personal Devices

For deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) viewers who cannot understand speech, many countries require video producers/distributors to provide speech-to-text over the video, also called subtitles that can be turned on or off by the viewer. These subtitles must comply with national subtitle quality standards. The growth in video capable personal devices has shifted viewers away from watching broadcast video on a standardized television display and towards watching video on interactive personal devices. However, personal devices range widely from tiny watch displays to enormous television displays, with different proportions which impact subtitle readability. SubtitleFormatter automatically formats subtitles according to a display's screen size and minimum font size for reading. A user study of subtitle formatting evaluates subtitle readability, and finds that viewers preferred SubtitleFormatted-segmented subtitles over wrap around (arbitrarily-formatted) subtitles.