Syncing and Transcripts
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I assume Pocketcasts has been rolling out a new feature where for certain recent episodes, synced transcripts are displayed. In theory (and how it is currently implemented) is that the currently said sentence is highlighted and user and tap on any paragraph/sentence forward/backward in the transcript and app would adjust the audio accordingly. The app,to be noted, automatically scrolls the transcripts page down (as podcast progresses).
This only works if transcript and podcasts are completely in sync. In practice, many podcasts dynamically insert advertisements [for which of course no transcript is generated]. This leads to mis-match between what is actually being spoken and transcript being displayed. In the previous versions, since transcripts were NOT automatically being scrolled, this didn’t pose a significant problem. However, in the latest version, this renders reading transcripts a chore because the audio might be so mis-matched that what is actually being spoken is not even present on the scrolled/shown transcript page.
Possible solutions: Give user the option, on a per podcast basis, to turn off synced transcripts.
Synced transcripts in theory [read: when they work] are a step up, but when they don’t , become a bug because user has to constantly fight against the incorrect syncing.
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Thanks for your feedback, @strummerj912
Dynamic Ads in theory should not affect this feature, so if you have examples of episodes where it is not working as expected, please share that with us along with your device information.
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