Finnish public broadcaster YLE will be providing a voice subtitling service in Finnish for the visually impaired and people with reading difficulties on the YLE TV1 digital channel as of 29 August. Finnish subtitling of foreign programmes will be heard in the form of synthesized speech. 

"Digital television technology now provides us with an opportunity to serve the visually impaired better and this fits in nicely with YLE’s public-service role. We are also examining development of other corresponding services", says Director of Television Olli-Pekka Heinonen.

Voice subtitling has been developed jointly by YLE and the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired. The project is part of a Ministry of Transport and Communications programme.

Voice subtitling is an example of how additional services can be produced at no major extra cost.
All that is required to run the service is a single PC with voice processing capabilities. The speech technology company Bitlips has created the speech synthesizer.

Works in majority of digiboxes 

Voice subtitling is used in foreign programmes subtitled in Finnish, in drama series, documentaries, factual programmes and also films.  

As a separate channel has not been set aside for voice subtitling on the digital receiver, YLE has chosen the Dutch voice track, rarely used in Finland, for the service. Synthesized voice subtitling in Finnish can be heard on the track, along with the programme’s original sound at a suitable volume. 

Voice subtitling works in the majority of existing digital boxes. The service requires that the principal audio language can be selected in the box and also that Dutch can be chosen.

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