Subbit! and audiovisual cultural heritage
TV archives offer insights into important historical topics that have shaped our past and continue to shape our present. They can bring history to life with first-hand accounts and add value to education by fostering critical thinking and stimulating creativity.
One way to help the public engage with this heritage can be through activities related to subtitling, which encourage people to dive into audiovisual clips in detail in a friendly and fun way while enriching the clips for future use.
Subbit! is a perfect example of such an activity. Through in person events, an online campaign and competition, Subbit invites people to edit and correct AI-generated subtitles of archival audiovisual clips from various European heritage collections available on the Europeana website. These include Spanish programmes, Italian newsreels, Dutch documentaries, and much more.
Subbit! is an initiative of the Europeana Subtitled Generic Services project, which focuses on the theme of ‘Broadcasting Europe’. The project highlights the social, political, and economical changes that shaped European history, as documented on television from the 1930s onwards. It adapts AI technology to cultural heritage audiovisual material to produce high-quality closed captions and English subtitles for selected video content.
Who can take part?
Language and media enthusiasts, translation lovers, and advanced language students - as well as students of media and technology - fascinated by European television stories are invited to take part in the Subbit! campaign. If you:
speak English and one of the languages Dutch, German, Greek, Italian, Slovenian, Spanish and Romanian
can spell, punctuate and use grammar accurately;
have a good eye, can review and correct subtitles;
have a good sense of editing and timing;
are able to dedicate some time to the contest;
...then you can take part!
Get involved
You can start working with Subbit! now and contribute to the enrichment of European cultural heritage through the Subbit! platform. You will get points for your work and track your progress on a leaderboard.
In the coming months, there will be online and in person events in Madrid (Spain), The Hague (the Netherlands), and Bucharest (Romania) to support subtitling - keep an eye on the Europeana events page to hear about them!