Both captioning and subtitling is available both in offline and online video. In a nutshell, captioning contains both the dialogue and non visual, but important sounds contained within a video (think ‘5the sound of thunder’ or ‘knock at the door’ – essentially sounds that are important to understanding what is going on, but not obvious 5to viewers who are deaf, hard of hearing or watching without the volume up). Subtitles contain dialogue only and so are more suitable as a viewing aid or for translation purposes.
Captioning For Deaf And Hard Of Hearing
Captioning is an essential part of making your video content accessible to viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. It is a legal requirement that all broadcast video and film has the option of closed captioning (captions that can be turned off or on as required by the viewer). This has also been recently looked at by offcom as something that will soon also be required from on demand video content.
Subtitling For Web Video
Subtitling for web videos can be provided in a variety of formats depending on whether you need to style the text available (e.g. You want a specific font style, font size, position or colour). We can provide both information and options to work with your specific needs.
Captioning Services For Broadcasting
Captioning for broadcast is slightly more complex than for web video and can be provided in a variety of formats and as either open or closed captions. Open captions or open subtilises are usually used when the speech is in a different language to the native language of the country it is being broadcast in. Again, open captions will often require some form of styling such as sizing, colour, style and position onscreen.
Captioning For On Demand Video
As mentioned above, captioning is very soon likely going to be a legal requirement for on demand viewing services. Thanks to the charity Action on Hearing, who have been working hard to ensure that captions be added to catch up TV. Now that it has government backing, we hope to see video become more accessible to those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Subtitling For SEO
Subtitling is an essential part of any video or podcast SEO. As the search engines are unable to read spoken dialogue accurately, the rely on the written content accompanying the video. This means captions, descriptions and even translated subtitles should all be a part of video and podcast production.
If you would like more information about any of our subtitling services, captioning services, translation services or transcription services, why not get in touch? We are available around the clock to help.
