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YouTube caption button missing?

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From: Terrill Thompson
Date: Feb 10, 2010 12:18PM

Hi All,

I'm trying to get a handle on what's happening on YouTube in recent days. The video player seems to have changed in some contexts, and one of the changes is that the button in the lower right corner that triggers captions and related features is no longer there. For example, check out the channel home page for the DO-IT Center:

http://www.youtube.com/TheDOITCenter

The featured video ("World Wide Access") as I'm seeing it in Firefox 3.6, IE 8, and Chrome 4, does not have the caption button in the lower right corner. The only buttons there are volume and full screen. This is in fact a captioned video, but if I play it in this player, captions are not displayed and there doesn't seem to be a way to turn them on.

However, if I click on any video in the list to the right of the player, the player reverts back to the previous version, which does include the caption button. Interestingly, this even works for the World Wide Access video, so the problem doesn't seem to be connected to characteristics of a particular video, but instead it seems to be dependent on context.

Is everyone else experiencing the same issue, or is it user-dependent? Assuming it's the same for everyone, does anyone have any insights? Is there some way to turn on captions in this new "improved" player that I'm just not finding? This is especially frustrating given Google's recent unveiling of automated captioning. That feature may have lots of potential, but it doesn't do any good at all if users can't turn on captions.

Thanks,

Terrill Thompson
Technology Accessibility Specialist
DO-IT, Accessible Technology
UW Technology Services
University of Washington
<EMAIL REMOVED>