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Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a
transcription Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including: Genetics * Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...
of the audio portion of a program as it occurs (either
verbatim Verbatim means word for word. Verbatim may also refer to: * Verbatim (brand), a brand of storage media and flash memory * Verbatim (horse), an American racehorse * ''Verbatim'' (magazine), edited by Erin McKean * Verbatim theatre Documentary th ...
or in edited form), sometimes including descriptions of non-speech elements. Other uses have included providing a textual alternative language translation of a presentation's primary audio language that is usually burned-in (or "open") to the video and unselectable.
HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
defines subtitles as a "transcription or translation of the dialogue when sound is available but not understood" by the viewer (for example, dialogue in a foreign language) and captions as a "transcription or translation of the dialogue, sound effects, relevant musical cues, and other relevant audio information when sound is unavailable or not clearly audible" (for example, when audio is muted or the viewer is deaf or hard of hearing).


Terminology

The term ''closed'' indicates that the captions are not visible until activated by the viewer, usually via the
remote control In electronics, a remote control (also known as a remote or clicker) is an electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operate devices such a ...
or menu option. On the other hand, the terms ''open'', ''burned-in'', ''baked on'', ''hard-coded'', or simply ''hard'' indicate that the captions are visible to all viewers as they are embedded in the video. In the United States and Canada, the terms '' subtitles'' and ''captions'' have different meanings. ''Subtitles'' assume the viewer can hear but cannot understand the language or accent, or the speech is not entirely clear, so they transcribe only dialogue and some on-screen text. ''Captions'' aim to describe to the deaf and hard of hearing all significant audio content—spoken dialogue and non-speech information such as the identity of speakers and, occasionally, their manner of speaking—along with any significant
music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
or
sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...
s using words or symbols. Also, the term ''closed caption'' has come to be used to also refer to the North American
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
encoding that is used with NTSC-compatible video. The
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
,
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, and most other countries do not distinguish between subtitles and closed captions and use ''subtitles'' as the general term. The equivalent of ''captioning'' is usually referred to as ''subtitles for the hard of hearing''. Their presence is referenced on screen by notation which says "Subtitles", or previously "Subtitles 888" or just "888" (the latter two are in reference to the conventional videotext channel for captions), which is why the term ''subtitle'' is also used to refer to the
Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST ( ...
-based videotext encoding that is used with PAL-compatible video. The term ''subtitle'' has been replaced with ''caption'' in a number of markets—such as Australia and New Zealand—that purchase large amounts of imported US material, with much of that video having had the US CC logo already superimposed over the start of it. In New Zealand, broadcasters superimpose an ear logo with a line through it that represents subtitles for the hard of hearing, even though they are currently referred to as captions. In the UK, modern digital television services have subtitles for the majority of programs, so it is no longer necessary to highlight which have subtitling/captioning and which do not.
Remote control In electronics, a remote control (also known as a remote or clicker) is an electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operate devices such a ...
handsets for TVs, DVDs, and similar devices in most European markets often use "SUB" or "SUBTITLE" on the button used to control the display of subtitles/captions.


History


Open captioning

Regular open-captioned broadcasts began on
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
's ''
The French Chef ''The French Chef'' is an American television cooking show created and hosted by Julia Child, produced and broadcast by WGBH, the public television station in Boston, Massachusetts, from February 11, 1963 to January 14, 1973. It was one of ...
'' in 1972. WGBH began open captioning of the programs ''
Zoom Zoom may refer to: Technology Computing * Zoom (software), videoconferencing application * Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display * Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...
'', ''
ABC World News Tonight ''ABC World News Tonight'' (titled ''ABC World News Tonight with David Muir'' for its weeknight broadcasts since September 2014) is the flagship daily evening television news program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting ...
'', and ''
Once Upon a Classic ''Once Upon a Classic'' was an American television program hosted by Bill Bixby. The program aired on PBS from 1976 to 1980 as a production of WQED in Pittsburgh. The episodes consisted of adaptations of such classic literature as ''A Connecticu ...
'' shortly thereafter.


Technical development of closed captioning

Closed captioning was first demonstrated in the United States at the First National Conference on Television for the Hearing Impaired in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1971. A second demonstration of closed captioning was held at Gallaudet College (now Gallaudet University) on February 15, 1972, where
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
and the
National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...
demonstrated closed captions embedded within a normal broadcast of ''
The Mod Squad ''The Mod Squad'' is an American crime drama series, originally broadcast for five seasons on ABC from September 24, 1968, to March 1, 1973. It starred Michael Cole as Peter "Pete" Cochran, Peggy Lipton as Julie Barnes, Clarence Williams III ...
''. At the same time in the UK the BBC was demonstrating its Ceefax text based broadcast service which they were already using as a foundation to the development of a closed caption production system. They were working with Professor Alan Newell from the University of Southampton who had been developing prototypes in the late 1960s. The closed captioning system was successfully encoded and broadcast in 1973 with the cooperation of PBS station WETA. As a result of these tests, the FCC in 1976 set aside line 21 for the transmission of closed captions. PBS engineers then developed the caption editing consoles that would be used to caption prerecorded programs. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
in the UK was the first broadcaster to include closed captions (called subtitles in the UK) in 1979 based on the
Teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
framework for pre-recorded programming. Real-time captioning, a process for captioning live broadcasts, was developed by the
National Captioning Institute The National Captioning Institute, Inc. (NCI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides real-time and off-line closed captioning, subtitling and translation, described video, web captioning, and Spanish captioning for television and film ...
in 1982. In real-time captioning, stenotype operators who are able to type at speeds of over 225 words per minute provide captions for live television programs, allowing the viewer to see the captions within two to three seconds of the words being spoken. Major US producers of captions are
WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's se ...
,
VITAC VITAC is a Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based provider of audio transcription services. It provides services such as closed captioning, dubbing, and audio description services. The company has over 700 employees, with clients ranging from broadcas ...
, CaptionMax and the
National Captioning Institute The National Captioning Institute, Inc. (NCI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides real-time and off-line closed captioning, subtitling and translation, described video, web captioning, and Spanish captioning for television and film ...
. In the UK and
Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologi ...
, Ai-Media,
Red Bee Media Red Bee Media, formerly Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services (EBMS), is an international broadcasting and media services company and the largest access provider in Europe. Red Bee has its headquarters in London, England, with branch offices in ...
, itfc, and Independent Media Support are the major vendors. Improvements in
speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ...
technology means that live captioning may be fully or partially automated.
BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC television, radio and online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside flag ...
broadcasts use a "respeaker": a trained human who repeats the running commentary (with careful enunciation and some simplification and markup) for input to the automated text generation system. This is generally reliable, though errors are not unknown.


Full-scale closed captioning

The National Captioning Institute was created in 1979 in order to get the cooperation of the commercial television networks. The first use of regularly scheduled closed captioning on American television occurred on March 16, 1980.
Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
had developed and sold the Telecaption adapter, a decoding unit that could be connected to a standard television set. The first programs seen with captioning were a '' Disney's Wonderful World'' presentation of the film '' Son of Flubber'' on
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
, an ''
ABC Sunday Night Movie ''The ABC Sunday Night Movie'' is a television program that aired on Sunday nights, first for a brief time in 1962 under the title ''Hollywood Special'' (although ''Time'' magazine lists this version as ''The Sunday Night Movie'') to supposedly r ...
'' airing of '' Semi-Tough'', and ''
Masterpiece Theatre ''Masterpiece'' (formerly known as ''Masterpiece Theatre'') is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on January 10, 1971. The series has presented numerous acclaimed Briti ...
'' on
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
. Since 2010 BBC provides a 100% broadcast captioning service across all 7 of its main broadcast channels
BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
, BBC Two,
BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, covering all genres including animation, comedy, cur ...
, BBC Four,
CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...
,
Cbeebies CBeebies is a British free-to-air public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6 years and under. Its sister channel CBBC is aimed at older childr ...
and BBC News (TV channel). BBC iPlayer launched in 2008 as the first captioned
Video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...
service from a major broadcaster meeting comparable levels of captioning as those provided on its broadcast channels.


Legislative development in the U.S.

Until the passage of the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990, television captioning was performed by a set-top box manufactured by Sanyo Electric and marketed by the National Captioning Institute (NCI). (At that time a set-top decoder cost about as much as a TV set itself, approximately $200.) Through discussions with the manufacturer it was established that the appropriate circuitry integrated into the television set would be less expensive than the stand-alone box, and Ronald May, then a Sanyo employee, provided the expert witness testimony on behalf of Sanyo and Gallaudet University in support of the passage of the bill. On January 23, 1991, the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 was passed by Congress. This Act gave the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) power to enact rules on the implementation of closed captioning. This Act required all analog television receivers with screens of at least 13 inches or greater, either sold or manufactured, to have the ability to display closed captioning by July 1, 1993. Also, in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed to ensure equal opportunity for persons with disabilities. The ADA prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities in public accommodations or commercial facilities. Title III of the ADA requires that public facilities—such as hospitals, bars, shopping centers and museums (but not movie theaters)—provide access to verbal information on televisions, films or slide shows. The Federal Communications Commission requires all providers of programs to caption material which has audio in English or Spanish, with certain exceptions specified in Section 79.1(d) of the commission's rules. These exceptions apply to new networks; programs in languages other than English or Spanish; networks having to spend over 2% of income on captioning; networks having less than US$3,000,000 in revenue; and certain local programs; among other exceptions. Those who are not covered by the exceptions may apply for a hardship waiver. The
Telecommunications Act of 1996 The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996, by President Bill Clinton. It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of ...
expanded on the Decoder Circuitry Act to place the same requirements on
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...
receivers by July 1, 2002. All TV programming distributors in the U.S. are required to provide closed captions for Spanish-language video programming as of January 1, 2010. A bill, H.R. 3101, the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, was passed by the United States House of Representatives in July 2010. A similar bill, S. 3304, with the same name, was passed by the United States Senate on August 5, 2010, by the House of Representatives on September 28, 2010, and was signed by President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
on October 8, 2010. The Act requires, in part, for ATSC-decoding set-top box remotes to have a button to turn on or off the closed captioning in the output signal. It also requires broadcasters to provide captioning for television programs redistributed on the Internet. On February 20, 2014, the FCC unanimously approved the implementation of quality standards for closed captioning, addressing accuracy, timing, completeness, and placement. This is the first time the FCC has addressed quality issues in captions. In 2015, a law was passed in Hawaii requiring two screenings a week of each movie with captions on the screen. In 2022 a law took effect in New York City requiring movie theaters to offer captions on the screen for up to four showtimes per movie each week, including weekends and Friday nights. Some state and local governments (including Boston, Massachusetts;
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...
;
Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
; and
Washington state Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...
) require closed captioning to be activated on TVs in public places at all times, even if no one has requested it.


Philippines

As amended by RA 10905, all TV networks in the Philippines are required to give CC. As of 2018, the three major TV networks in the country are currently testing the closed captioning system on their transmissions.
ABS-CBN ABS-CBN (an initialism of its two predecessors' names, Alto Broadcasting System and Chronicle Broadcasting Network) is a Philippine commercial broadcast network that serves as the flagship property of ABS-CBN Corporation, a company unde ...
added CC in their daily 3 O'Clock Habit in the afternoon. 5 started implementing CCs on their live noon and nightly news programs. GMA was once started broadcasting nightly and late night news programs, but then they stopped adding CCs lately. Only select
Korean drama Korean dramas (; RR: ''Han-guk deurama''), more popularly known as K-dramas, are television series in the Korean language, made in South Korea. They are popular worldwide, especially in Asia, partially due to the spread of Korean popular cultu ...
and local or foreign movies, ''Biyahe ni Drew'' (English: ''Drew's Explorations'') and ''Idol sa Kusina'' (English: ''Kitchen Idol'') are the programs and shows that they air with proper closed captioning. Closed captioning in some Filipino films either to be "included" if film production companies have a bias on having impact on their viewing experience for those who did not understand the language. Since 2016, all Filipino-Language Films and also on some Streaming Services like iWant had included their English Subtitles in some showing on films. The law regarding that was passed by Gerald Anthony Gullas Jr., a lawmaker from Cebu City, who had implemented the regulations on standardizing both official languages of the Philippines, as the people had not fluently mastered their English vocabulary.


Legislative development in Australia

The government of Australia provided
seed funding Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...
in 1981 for the establishment of the Australian Caption Centre (ACC) and the purchase of equipment. Captioning by the ACC commenced in 1982 and a further grant from the Australian government enabled the ACC to achieve and maintain financial self-sufficiency. The ACC, now known as Media Access Australia, sold its commercial captioning division to
Red Bee Media Red Bee Media, formerly Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services (EBMS), is an international broadcasting and media services company and the largest access provider in Europe. Red Bee has its headquarters in London, England, with branch offices in ...
in December 2005. Red Bee Media continues to provide captioning services in Australia today.


Funding development in New Zealand

In 1981, TVNZ held a
telethon A telethon (a portmanteau of "television" and "marathon") is a televised fundraising event that lasts many hours or even days, the purpose of which is to raise money for a charitable, political or other purportedly worthy cause. Most telethons f ...
to raise funds for Teletext-encoding equipment used for the creation and editing of text-based broadcast services for the deaf. The service came into use in 1984 with caption creation and importing paid for as part of the public broadcasting fee until the creation of the
NZ on Air NZ On Air (NZOA; mi, Irirangi te Motu), formally the Broadcasting Commission, is an autonomous Crown entity and commission of the New Zealand Government responsible for funding support for broadcasting and creative works. The commission oper ...
taxpayer fund, which is used to provide captioning for
NZ On Air NZ On Air (NZOA; mi, Irirangi te Motu), formally the Broadcasting Commission, is an autonomous Crown entity and commission of the New Zealand Government responsible for funding support for broadcasting and creative works. The commission oper ...
content, TVNZ news shows and conversion of
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
US captions to the preferred EBU STL format for only
TVNZ 1 TVNZ 1 ( mi, Te Reo Tātaki Tahi) is the first national television channel owned and operated by the state-owned broadcaster Television New Zealand (TVNZ). It is the oldest television broadcaster in New Zealand, starting out from 1960 as indep ...
, TV 2 and TV 3 with archived captions available to
FOUR 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...
and select
Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...
programming. During the second half of 2012, TV3 and
FOUR 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...
began providing non-Teletext DVB image-based captions on their HD service and used the same format on the satellite service, which has since caused major timing issues in relation to server load and the loss of captions from most SD DVB-S receivers, such as the ones Sky Television provides their customers. As of April 2, 2013, only the Teletext page 801 caption service will remain in use with the informational Teletext non-caption content being discontinued.


Application

Closed captions were created for
deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...
and
hard of hearing Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to acquire spoken la ...
individuals to assist in comprehension. They can also be used as a tool by those learning to read, learning to speak a non-native language, or in an environment where the audio is difficult to hear or is intentionally muted. Captions can also be used by viewers who simply wish to read a transcript along with the program audio. In the United States, the
National Captioning Institute The National Captioning Institute, Inc. (NCI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides real-time and off-line closed captioning, subtitling and translation, described video, web captioning, and Spanish captioning for television and film ...
noted that
English as a foreign or second language English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages. Language education for people learning English may be known as English as a second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EFL ...
(ESL) learners were the largest group buying decoders in the late 1980s and early 1990s before built-in decoders became a standard feature of US television sets. This suggested that the largest audience of closed captioning was people whose native language was not English. In the United Kingdom, of 7.5 million people using TV subtitles (closed captioning), 6 million have no hearing impairment. Closed captions are also used in public environments, such as bars and restaurants, where patrons may not be able to hear over the background noise, or where multiple televisions are displaying different programs. In addition, online videos may be treated through digital processing of their audio content by various robotic algorithms (robots). Multiple chains of errors are the result. When a video is truly and accurately transcribed, then the closed-captioning publication serves a useful purpose, and the content is available for search engines to index and make available to users on the internet. Some television sets can be set to automatically turn captioning on when the volume is muted.


Television and video

For ''live'' programs, spoken words comprising the television program's
soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack ...
are transcribed by a human operator (a
speech-to-text reporter A speech-to-text reporter (STTR), also known as a captioner, is a person who listens to what is being said and inputs it, word for word (wikt:verbatim, verbatim), using an electronic shorthand keyboard, speech recognition software, or a CAT (Com ...
) using stenotype or
stenomask A stenomask is a hand-held microphone built into a padded, sound-proof enclosure that fits over the speaker's mouth or nose and mouth. Some lightweight versions may be fitted with an elastic neck strap to hold them in place while freeing the user' ...
type of machines, whose phonetic output is instantly translated into text by a computer and displayed on the screen. This technique was developed in the 1970s as an initiative of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's
Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST ( ...
teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
service. In collaboration with the BBC, a university student took on the research project of writing the first phonetics-to-text conversion program for this purpose. Sometimes, the captions of live broadcasts, like news bulletins, sports events, live entertainment shows, and other live shows, fall behind by a few seconds. This delay is because the machine does not know what the person is going to say next, so after the person on the show says the sentence, the captions appear. Automatic computer speech recognition works well when trained to recognize a single voice, and so since 2003, the BBC does live subtitling by having someone re-speak what is being broadcast. Live captioning is also a form of
real-time text Real-time text (RTT) is text transmitted instantly as it is typed or created. Recipients can immediately read the message while it is being written, without waiting. Real-time text is used for conversational text, in collaboration, and in live cap ...
. Meanwhile, sport events on ESPN are using court reporters, using a special (steno) keyboard and individually constructed "dictionaries." In some cases, the transcript is available beforehand, and captions are simply displayed during the program after being edited. For programs that have a mix of pre-prepared and live content, such as
news bulletin Breaking news, interchangeably termed late-breaking news and also known as a special report or special coverage or news flash, is a news, current issue that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled programming or current news in ...
s, a combination of techniques is used. For prerecorded programs, commercials, and home videos, audio is transcribed and captions are prepared, positioned, and timed in advance. For all types of
NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...
programming, captions are "encoded" into line 21 of the
vertical blanking interval In a raster scan display, the vertical blanking interval (VBI), also known as the vertical interval or VBLANK, is the time between the end of the final visible line of a frame or field and the beginning of the first visible line of the next fra ...
- a part of the TV picture that sits just above the visible portion and is usually unseen. For ATSC (
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...
) programming, three streams are encoded in the video: two are backward compatible "line 21" captions, and the third is a set of up to 63 additional caption streams encoded in
EIA-708 CTA-708 (formerly EIA-708 and CEA-708) is the standard for closed captioning for ATSC digital television (DTV) streams in the United States and Canada. It was developed by the Consumer Electronics sector of the Electronic Industries Alliance, wh ...
format. - ATSC Closed Captioning FAQ
cached copy
 Captioning is modulated and stored differently in
PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
and
SECAM SECAM, also written SÉCAM (, ''Séquentiel de couleur à mémoire'', French for ''color sequential with memory''), is an analog color television system that was used in France, some parts of Europe and Africa, and Russia. It was one of th ...
625 line 25 frame countries, where
teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
is used rather than in
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
, but the methods of preparation and the line 21 field used are similar. For home Betamax and VHS videotapes, a shift down of this line 21 field must be done due to the greater number of VBI lines used in 625 line PAL countries, though only a small minority of European PAL VHS machines support this (or any) format for closed caption recording. Like all teletext fields, teletext captions can't be stored by a standard 625 line VHS recorder (due to the lack of field shifting support); they are available on all professional
S-VHS , the common initialism for Super VHS, is an improved version of the VHS standard for consumer-level video recording. Victor Company of Japan introduced S-VHS in Japan in April 1987, with their JVC-branded HR-S7000 VCR, and in certain overse ...
recordings due to all fields being recorded. Recorded Teletext caption fields also suffer from a higher number of caption errors due to increased number of bits and a low SNR, especially on low-bandwidth VHS. This is why Teletext captions used to be stored separately on floppy disk to the analogue master tape. DVDs have their own system for subtitles and captions, which are digitally inserted in the data stream and decoded on playback into video. For older televisions, a set-top box or other decoder is usually required. In the US, since the passage of the Television Decoder Circuitry Act, manufacturers of most television receivers sold have been required to include closed captioning display capability. High-definition TV sets, receivers, and tuner cards are also covered, though the technical specifications are different (high-definition display screens, as opposed to high-definition TVs, may lack captioning). Canada has no similar law but receives the same sets as the US in most cases. During transmission, single byte errors can be replaced by a white space which can appear at the beginning of the program. More byte errors during EIA-608 transmission can affect the screen momentarily, by defaulting to a real-time mode such as the "roll up" style, type random letters on screen, and then revert to normal. Uncorrectable byte errors within the teletext page header will cause whole captions to be dropped. EIA-608, due to using only two characters per video frame, sends these captions ahead of time storing them in a second buffer awaiting a command to display them; Teletext sends these in real-time. The use of capitalization varies among caption providers. Most caption providers capitalize all words while others such as WGBH and non-US providers prefer to use mixed-case letters. There are two main styles of line 21 closed captioning: * Roll-up or scroll-up or paint-on or scrolling: Real-time words sent in paint-on or scrolling mode appear from left to right, up to one line at a time; when a line is filled in roll-up mode, the whole line scrolls up to make way for a new line, and the line on top is erased. The lines usually appear at the bottom of the screen, but can actually be placed on any of the 14 screen rows to avoid covering graphics or action. This method is used when captioning video in real-time such as for live events, where a sequential word-by-word captioning process is needed or a pre-made intermediary file isn't available. This method is signaled on
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
by a two-byte caption command or in Teletext by replacing rows for a roll-up effect and duplicating rows for a paint-on effect. This allows for real-time caption line editing. * Pop-on or pop-up or block: A caption appears on any of the 14 screen rows as a complete sentence, which can be followed by additional captions. This method is used when captions come from an intermediary file (such as the Scenarist or EBU STL file formats) for pre-taped television and film programming, commonly produced at captioning facilities. This method of captioning can be aided by digital scripts or voice recognition software, and if used for live events, would require a video delay to avoid a large delay in the captions' appearance on-screen, which occurs with Teletext-encoded live subtitles.


Caption formatting

TVNZ Access Services and Red Bee Media for BBC and Australia example: 
I got the machine ready.
ENGINE STARTING
(speeding away)
UK IMS for ITV and Sky example: 
(man) I got the machine ready. (engine starting)
US WGBH Access Services example: 
MAN: I got the machine ready. (engine starting)
US
National Captioning Institute The National Captioning Institute, Inc. (NCI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides real-time and off-line closed captioning, subtitling and translation, described video, web captioning, and Spanish captioning for television and film ...
example: 
- I GOT THE MACHINE READY.
US other provider example: 
I GOT THE MACHINE READY.
 ngine starting
US in-house real-time roll-up example: 
>> Man: I GOT THE MACHINE READY.
 ngine starting
Non-US in-house real-time roll-up example: 
MAN: I got the machine ready.
(ENGINE STARTING)
US CaptionMax example: 
 ANI got the machine ready.
 ngine starting


Syntax

For real-time captioning done outside of captioning facilities, the following syntax is used: * '>>' (two prefixed
greater-than sign The greater-than sign is a mathematical symbol that denotes an inequality between two values. The widely adopted form of two equal-length strokes connecting in an acute angle at the right, , has been found in documents dated as far back as the ...
s) indicates a change in single speaker. ** Sometimes appended with the speaker's name in alternate case, followed by a colon. * '>>>' (three prefixed greater-than signs) indicates a change in news story or multiple speakers. Styles of syntax that are used by various captioning producers: * Capitals indicate main on-screen dialogue and the name of the speaker. ** Legacy
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
home caption decoder fonts had no
descender In typography and handwriting, a descender is the portion of a letter that extends below the baseline of a font. For example, in the letter ''y'', the descender is the "tail", or that portion of the diagonal line which lies below the ''v'' c ...
s on lowercase letters. ** Outside North America, capitals with background coloration indicate a song title or sound effect description. ** Outside North America, capitals with black or no background coloration indicates when a word is stressed or emphasized. * Descenders indicate background sound description and
off-screen The terms offscreen, off camera, and offstage refer to fictional events in theatre, television, or film which are not seen on stage or in frame, but are merely heard by the audience, or described (or implied) by the characters or narrator. Offs ...
dialogue. ** Most modern caption producers, such as
WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's se ...
, use
mixed case Capitalization (American English) or capitalisation (British English) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in lower case, in writing systems with a case distinction. The term a ...
for both on-screen and
off-screen The terms offscreen, off camera, and offstage refer to fictional events in theatre, television, or film which are not seen on stage or in frame, but are merely heard by the audience, or described (or implied) by the characters or narrator. Offs ...
dialogue. * '-' (a prefixed dash) indicates a change in single speaker (used by CaptionMax). * Words in
italics In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed ...
indicate when a word is stressed or emphasized and when real world names are quoted. ** Italics and
bold type In typography, emphasis is the strengthening of words in a text with a font in a different style from the rest of the text, to highlight them. It is the equivalent of prosody stress in speech. Methods and use The most common methods in W ...
are only supported by
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
. ** Some North American providers use this for
narrated A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). N ...
dialogue. ** Some providers use this for
off-screen The terms offscreen, off camera, and offstage refer to fictional events in theatre, television, or film which are not seen on stage or in frame, but are merely heard by the audience, or described (or implied) by the characters or narrator. Offs ...
dialogue. ** Italics are also applied when a word is spoken in a foreign language. * Text coloration indicates captioning credits and sponsorship. ** Used by
music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
s in the past, but generally has declined due to system incompatibilities. ** In Ceefax/Teletext countries, it indicates a change in single speaker in place of '>>'. ** Some Teletext countries use coloration to indicate when a word is stressed or emphasized. ** Coloration is limited to white, green, blue, cyan, red, yellow and magenta. ** UK order of use for text is
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
,
green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combi ...
, cyan,
yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the ...
; and backgrounds is
black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
,
red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...
,
blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...
,
magenta Magenta () is a color that is variously defined as pinkish- purplish- red, reddish-purplish-pink or mauvish-crimson. On color wheels of the RGB (additive) and CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located exactly midway between red and blu ...
,
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
. ** US order of use for text is
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
,
yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the ...
, cyan,
green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combi ...
; and backgrounds is
black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
,
blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...
,
red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...
,
magenta Magenta () is a color that is variously defined as pinkish- purplish- red, reddish-purplish-pink or mauvish-crimson. On color wheels of the RGB (additive) and CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located exactly midway between red and blu ...
, white. *
Square brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
or
parentheses A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
indicate a song title or sound effect description. *
Parentheses A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
indicate speaker's vocal pitch e.g., (man), (woman), (boy) or (girl). ** Outside North America,
parentheses A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
indicate a silent on-screen action. * A pair of
eighth note 180px, Figure 1. An eighth note with stem extending up, an eighth note with stem extending down, and an eighth rest. 180px, Figure 2. Four eighth notes beamed together. An eighth note (American) or a quaver ( British) is a musical note pla ...
s is used to bracket a line of
lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a " libretto" and their writer, ...
to indicate singing. ** A pair of eighth notes on a line of no text are used during a section of instrumental music. ** Outside North America, a single
number sign The symbol is known variously in English-speaking regions as the number sign, hash, or pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a ligatured abbreviati ...
is used on a line of
lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a " libretto" and their writer, ...
to indicate singing. ** An additional musical notation character is appended to the end of the last line of lyrics to indicate the song's end. ** As the symbol is unsupported by
Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST ( ...
/
Teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
, a
number sign The symbol is known variously in English-speaking regions as the number sign, hash, or pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a ligatured abbreviati ...
- which resembles a musical
sharp Sharp or SHARP may refer to: Acronyms * SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme * Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 19 ...
- is substituted.


Technical aspects

There were many shortcomings in the original Line 21 specification from a
typographic Typography is the art and technique of typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...
standpoint, since, for example, it lacked many of the characters required for captioning in languages other than English. Since that time, the core Line 21 character set has been expanded to include quite a few more characters, handling most requirements for languages common in North and South America such as French,
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, and
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
, though those extended characters are not required in all decoders and are thus unreliable in everyday use. The problem has been almost eliminated with a market specific full set of Western European characters and a private adopted
Norpak Norpak Corporation was a company headquartered in Kanata, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of systems for television-based data transmission. In 2010, it was acquired by Ross Video Ltd. of Iroquois and Ottawa, Ontario. Norpa ...
extension for South Korean and
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
markets. The full
EIA-708 CTA-708 (formerly EIA-708 and CEA-708) is the standard for closed captioning for ATSC digital television (DTV) streams in the United States and Canada. It was developed by the Consumer Electronics sector of the Electronic Industries Alliance, wh ...
standard for digital television has worldwide character set support, but there has been little use of it due to EBU Teletext dominating
DVB Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) o ...
countries, which has its own extended character sets. Captions are often edited to make them easier to read and to reduce the amount of text displayed onscreen. This editing can be very minor, with only a few occasional unimportant missed lines, to severe, where virtually every line spoken by the actors is condensed. The measure used to guide this editing is words per minute, commonly varying from 180 to 300, depending on the type of program. Offensive words are also captioned, but if the program is censored for TV broadcast, the broadcaster might not have arranged for the captioning to be edited or censored also. The "TV Guardian", a television
set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...
, is available to parents who wish to censor offensive language of programs—the video signal is fed into the box and if it detects an offensive word in the captioning, the audio signal is bleeped or muted for that period of time.


Caption channels

The Line 21 data stream can consist of data from several data channels
multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
together. Odd field 1 can have four data channels: two separate synchronized captions (CC1, CC2) with caption-related text, such as website URLs (T1, T2). Even field 2 can have five additional data channels: two separate synchronized captions (CC3, CC4) with caption related text (T3, T4), and
Extended Data Services Extended Data Services (now XDS, previously EDS), is an American standard classified under Electronic Industries Alliance standard
(XDS) for Now/Next
EPG Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for ...
details. XDS data structure is defined in CEA-608. As CC1 and CC2 share bandwidth, if there is a lot of data in CC1, there will be little room for CC2 data and is generally only used for the primary audio captions. Similarly, CC3 and CC4 share the second even field of line 21. Since some early caption decoders supported only single field decoding of CC1 and CC2, captions for
SAP Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separ ...
in a second language were often placed in CC2. This led to bandwidth problems, and the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) recommendation is that bilingual programming should have the second caption language in CC3. Many Spanish television networks such as
Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and includes ...
and
Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. It provides content nationally with pr ...
, for example, provides English subtitles for many of its
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
programs in CC3.
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
broadcasters use CC3 for French translated SAPs, which is also a similar practice in South Korea and Japan. Ceefax and Teletext can have a larger number of captions for other languages due to the use of multiple VBI lines. However, only
European countries The list below includes all entities falling even partially under any of the regions of Europe, various common definitions of Europe, geographical or political. Fifty generally recognised sovereign states, Kosovo with limited, but substantial, ...
used a second subtitle page for second language audio tracks where either the
NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Spi ...
dual mono or
Zweikanalton Zweikanalton ("two-channel sound") or A2 Stereo, is an analog television sound transmission system used in Germany, Austria, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands and some other countries that use or used PAL-B or PAL-G. TV3 Malaysia formerly used ...
were used.


Digital television interoperability issues

The US ATSC
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...
system originally specified two different kinds of ''closed captioning'' datastream standards: the original analog-compatible (available by Line 21) and the more modern digital-only CEA-708 formats are delivered within the video stream. The US FCC mandates that broadcasters deliver (and generate, if necessary) both datastream formats with the CEA-708 format merely a conversion of the Line 21 format. The
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
CRTC The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...
has not mandated that broadcasters either broadcast both datastream formats or exclusively in one format. Most broadcasters and networks to avoid large conversion cost outlays just provide
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
captions along with a transcoded CEA-708 version encapsulated within CEA-708 packets.


Incompatibility issues with digital TV

Many viewers find that when they acquire a
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...
or
set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...
they are unable to view closed caption (CC) information, even though the broadcaster is sending it and the TV is able to display it. Originally, CC information was included in the picture ("line 21") via a composite video input, but there is no equivalent capability in digital video interconnects (such as DVI and
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...
) between the display and a "source". A "source", in this case, can be a
DVD player A DVD player is a device that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...
or a
terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...
or cable digital television receiver. When CC information is encoded in the MPEG-2 data stream, only the device that decodes the MPEG-2 data (a source) has access to the ''closed caption'' information; there is no standard for transmitting the CC information to a display monitor separately. Thus, if there is CC information, the source device needs to overlay the CC information on the picture prior to transmitting to the display over the interconnect's video output. The responsibility of decoding the CC information and overlaying onto the visible video image has been taken away from the TV display and put into the "source" of DVI and HDMI digital video interconnects. Because the TV handles "mute" and, when using DVI and
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...
, a different device handles turning on and off CC, this means the "captions come on automatically when the TV is muted" feature no longer works. That source device—such as a
DVD player A DVD player is a device that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...
or
set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...
—must "burn" the image of the CC text into the picture data carried by the
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...
or DVI cable; there's no other way for the CC text to be carried over the
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...
or DVI cable. Many source devices do not have the ability to overlay CC information, for controlling the CC overlay can be complicated. For example, the
Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...
DCT-5xxx and -6xxx cable set-top receivers have the ability to decode CC information located on the MPEG-2 stream and overlay it on the picture, but turning CC on and off requires turning off the unit and going into a special setup menu (it is not on the standard configuration menu and it cannot be controlled using the remote). Historically, DVD players,
VCRs A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the recordin ...
and set-top tuners did not need to do this overlaying, since they simply passed this information on to the TV, and they are not mandated to perform this overlaying. Many modern digital television receivers can be directly connected to cables, but often cannot receive scrambled channels that the user is paying for. Thus, the lack of a standard way of sending CC information between components, along with the lack of a mandate to add this information to a picture, results in CC being unavailable to many hard-of-hearing and deaf users. The EBU
Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST ( ...
-based teletext systems are the source for closed captioning signals, thus when teletext is embedded into DVB-T or DVB-S the closed captioning signal is included. However, for DVB-T and DVB-S, it is not necessary for a teletext page signal to also be present (
ITV1 ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for t ...
, for example, does not carry analogue teletext signals on Sky Digital, but does carry the embedded version, accessible from the "Services" menu of the receiver, or more recently by turning them off/on from a mini menu accessible from the "help" button). The
BBC's #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
Subtitle (Captioning) Editorial Guidelines were born out of the capabilities of
Teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
but are now used by multiple European broadcasters as the editorial and design best practice guide


New Zealand

In New Zealand, captions use an EBU
Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST ( ...
-based teletext system on
DVB Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) o ...
broadcasts via
satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...
and
cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...
with the exception of
MediaWorks New Zealand MediaWorks New Zealand is a New Zealand-based company specialising in radio, outdoor advertising and interactive media. It is jointly owned by U.S. company Oaktree Capital Management and out-of-home advertising company QMS. It operates nine ...
channels who completely switched to
DVB Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) o ...
RLE subtitles in 2012 on both
Freeview Freeview may refer to: * Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia * Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), ...
satellite and UHF broadcasts, this decision was made based on the TVNZ practice of using this format on only
DVB Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) o ...
UHF broadcasts (aka
Freeview HD Freeview is the United Kingdom's sole digital terrestrial television platform. It is operated by Digital UK Ltd and DTV Services Ltd, a joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky. It was launched on 30 October 2002, t ...
). This made composite video connected TVs incapable of decoding the captions on their own. Also, these
pre-rendered Pre-rendering is the process in which video footage is not rendered in real-time by the hardware that is outputting or playing back the video. Instead, the video is a recording of footage that was previously rendered on different equipment (typic ...
subtitles use classic caption style opaque backgrounds with an overly large
font size In typography, the point is the smallest unit of measure. It is used for measuring font size, leading, and other items on a printed page. The size of the point has varied throughout printing's history. Since the 18th century, the size of a po ...
and obscure the picture more than the more modern, partially transparent backgrounds.


Digital television standard captioning improvements

The CEA-708 specification provides for dramatically improved ''captioning'' * An enhanced character set with more accented letters and non-Latin letters, and more special symbols * Viewer-adjustable text size (called the "caption volume control" in the specification), allowing individuals to adjust their TVs to display small, normal, or large captions * More text and background colors, including both transparent and translucent backgrounds to optionally replace the big
black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
block * More text styles, including edged or
drop shadow In graphic design and computer graphics, a drop shadow is a visual effect consisting of a drawing element which looks like the shadow of an object, giving the impression that the object is raised above the objects behind it. The drop shadow is of ...
ed text rather than the letters on a solid background * More text fonts, including
monospaced A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. This contrasts with variable-width fonts, where the letters and spaci ...
and proportional spaced, serif and sans-serif, and some playful cursive fonts * Higher
bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
, to allow more
data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...
per minute of
video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...
* More language channels, to allow the encoding of more independent caption streams As of 2009, most closed captioning for digital television environments is done using tools designed for analog captioning (working to the CEA-608
NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...
specification rather than the CEA-708 ATSC specification). The captions are then run through transcoders made by companies lik
EEG Enterprises
or Evertz, which convert the analog Line 21 caption format to the digital format. This means that none of the CEA-708 features are used unless they were also contained in CEA-608.


Uses in other media


DVDs and Blu-ray Discs

NTSC DVDs may carry closed captions in data packets of the MPEG-2 video streams inside of the Video-TS folder. Once played out of the analog outputs of a set top DVD player, the caption data is converted to the Line 21 format. They are output by the player to the composite video (or an available RF connector) for a connected TV's built-in decoder or a set-top decoder as usual. They can not be output on
S-Video S-Video (also known as separate video, Y/C, and erroneously Super-Video ) is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video, typically at 525 lines or 625 lines. It encodes video luma and chrominance on two separate chan ...
or
component video Component video is an analog video signal that has been split into two or more component channels. In popular use, it refers to a type of component analog video (CAV) information that is transmitted or stored as three separate signals. Compo ...
outputs due to the lack of a colorburst signal on line 21. (Actually, regardless of this, if the DVD player is in interlaced rather than progressive mode, closed captioning ''will'' be displayed on the TV over component video input if the TV captioning is turned on and set to CC1.) When viewed on a personal computer, caption data can be viewed by software that can read and decode the caption data packets in the MPEG-2 streams of the DVD-Video disc.
Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player (application software), media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing sound reproduction, audio, video and viewing images on personal computers runnin ...
(before
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
) in Vista supported only closed caption channels 1 and 2 (not 3 or 4). Apple's
DVD Player A DVD player is a device that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...
does not have the ability to read and decode Line 21 caption data which are recorded on a DVD made from an over-the-air broadcast. It can display some movie DVD captions. In addition to Line 21 closed captions, video DVDs may also carry subtitles, which generally rendered from the
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
captions as a bitmap overlay that can be turned on and off via a set top DVD player or DVD player software, just like the textual captions. This type of captioning is usually carried in a subtitle track labeled either "English for the hearing impaired" or, more recently, "SDH" (subtitled for the deaf and Hard of hearing). Many popular Hollywood DVD-Videos can carry both subtitles and closed captions (e.g. '' Stepmom'' DVD by Columbia Pictures). On some DVDs, the Line 21 captions may contain the same text as the subtitles; on others, only the Line 21 captions include the additional non-speech information (even sometimes song lyrics) needed for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. European Region 2 DVDs do not carry Line 21 captions, and instead list the subtitle languages available-English is often listed twice, one as the representation of the dialogue alone, and a second subtitle set which carries additional information for the deaf and hard-of-hearing audience. (Many deaf/ subtitle files on DVDs are reworkings of original teletext subtitle files.)
Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
media cannot carry any VBI data such as Line 21 closed captioning due to the design of DVI-based
High-Definition Multimedia Interface High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller ...
(HDMI) specifications that was only extended for synchronized digital audio replacing older analog standards, such as
VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...
, S-Video, component video, and
SCART SCART (also known as or , especially in France, 21-pin EuroSCART in marketing by Sharp in Asia, Euroconector in Spain, EuroAV or EXT, or EIA Multiport in the United States, as an EIA interface) is a French-originated standard and associated 2 ...
. Both Blu-ray and DVD can use either PNG bitmap subtitles or 'advanced subtitles' to carry SDH type subtitling, the latter being an XML-based textual format which includes font, styling and positioning information as well as a unicode representation of the text. Advanced subtitling can also include additional media accessibility features such as "descriptive audio".


Movies

There are several competing technologies used to provide captioning for movies in theaters. Cinema captioning falls into the categories of open and closed. The definition of "closed" captioning in this context is different from television, as it refers to any technology that allows as few as one member of the audience to view the captions. Open captioning in a film theater can be accomplished through burned-in captions, projected text or
bitmap In computing, a bitmap is a mapping from some domain (for example, a range of integers) to bits. It is also called a bit array or bitmap index. As a noun, the term "bitmap" is very often used to refer to a particular bitmapping application: t ...
s, or (rarely) a display located above or below the movie screen. Typically, this display is a large LED sign. In a digital theater, open caption display capability is built into the digital projector. Closed caption capability is also available, with the ability for 3rd-party closed caption devices to plug into the digital cinema server. Probably the best known closed captioning option for film theaters is the Rear Window Captioning System from the National Center for Accessible Media. Upon entering the theater, viewers requiring captions are given a panel of flat translucent glass or plastic on a gooseneck stalk, which can be mounted in front of the viewer's seat. In the back of the theater is an LED display that shows the captions in mirror image. The panel reflects captions for the viewer but is nearly invisible to surrounding patrons. The panel can be positioned so that the viewer watches the movie through the panel, and captions appear either on or near the movie image. A company called Cinematic Captioning Systems has a similar reflective system called Bounce Back. A major problem for distributors has been that these systems are each proprietary, and require separate distributions to the theater to enable them to work. Proprietary systems also incur license fees. For film projection systems,
Digital Theater Systems DTS, Inc. (originally Digital Theater Systems) is an American company that makes multichannel audio technologies for film and video. Based in Calabasas, California, the company introduced its DTS technology in 1993 as a competitor to Dolby Labor ...
, the company behind the DTS
surround sound Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener (surround channels). Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to s ...
standard, has created a digital captioning device called the DTS-CSS (Cinema Subtitling System). It is a combination of a laser projector which places the captioning (words, sounds) anywhere on the screen and a thin playback device with a CD that holds many languages. If the Rear Window Captioning System is used, the DTS-CSS player is also required for sending caption text to the Rear Window sign located in the rear of the theater. Special effort has been made to build accessibility features into digital projection systems (see
digital cinema Digital cinema refers to adoption of digital technology within the film industry to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Whereas film reels have to be sh ...
). Through
SMPTE The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...
, standards now exist that dictate how open and closed captions, as well as hearing-impaired and visually impaired narrative audio, are packaged with the rest of the digital movie. This eliminates the proprietary caption distributions required for film, and the associated royalties. SMPTE has also standardized the communication of closed caption content between the digital cinema server and 3rd-party closed caption systems (the CSP/RPL protocol). As a result, new, competitive closed caption systems for digital cinema are now emerging that will work with any standards-compliant digital cinema server. These newer closed caption devices include cupholder-mounted electronic displays and wireless glasses which display caption text in front of the wearer's eyes. Bridge devices are also available to enable the use of Rear Window systems. As of mid-2010, the remaining challenge to the wide introduction of accessibility in digital cinema is the industry-wide transition to SMPTE DCP, the standardized packaging method for very high quality, secure distribution of digital movies.


Sports venues

Captioning systems have also been adopted by most major league and high-profile college stadiums and
arena An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators ...
s, typically through dedicated portions of their main
scoreboard A scoreboard is a large board for publicly displaying the score in a game. Most levels of sport from high school and above use at least one scoreboard for keeping score, measuring time, and displaying statistics. Scoreboards in the past used ...
s or as part of balcony fascia LED boards. These screens display captions of the public address announcer and other spoken content, such as those contained within in-game segments, public service announcements, and lyrics of songs played in-stadium. In some facilities, these systems were added as a result of discrimination lawsuits. Following a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act,
FedExField FedExField (originally Jack Kent Cooke Stadium) is an American football stadium located in Summerfield, Maryland, east of Washington, D.C. The stadium is the home of the Washington Commanders of the National Football League (NFL). From 2004 u ...
added caption screens in 2006. Some stadiums utilize on-site captioners while others outsource them to external providers who caption remotely.


Video games

The infrequent appearance of closed captioning in
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s became a problem in the 1990s as games began to commonly feature voice tracks, which in some cases contained information which the player needed in order to know how to progress in the game. Closed captioning of video games is becoming more common. One of the first video game companies to feature closed captioning was Bethesda Softworks in their 1990 release of ''Hockey League Simulator'' and '' The Terminator 2029''. Infocom also offered ''
Zork Grand Inquisitor ''Zork: Grand Inquisitor'' is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Activision, and released for Windows in 1997; a second edition for Macintosh was released in 2001. The game is the twelfth in the ''Zork'' series, and builds upon ...
'' in 1997. Many games since then have at least offered subtitles for spoken dialog during
cutscene A cutscene or event scene (sometimes in-game cinematic or in-game movie) is a sequence in a video game that is not interactive, interrupting the gameplay. Such scenes are used to show conversations between characters, set the mood, reward th ...
s, and many include significant in-game dialog and sound effects in the captions as well; for example, with subtitles turned on in the ''
Metal Gear Solid is a series of techno-thriller stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, ''Metal Gear'', was released in 1987 for MSX home computers. The player often takes control of a special forces opera ...
'' series of stealth games, not only are subtitles available during cut scenes, but any dialog spoken during real-time gameplay will be captioned as well, allowing players who can't hear the dialog to know what enemy guards are saying and when the main character has been detected. Also, in many of developer
Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...
's video games (such as ''
Half-Life 2 ''Half-Life 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Valve Corporation, Valve. It was published by Valve through its distribution service Steam (service), Steam. Like the original ''Half-Life (video game), Half-Life'' (1998), ''Half- ...
'' or ''
Left 4 Dead ''Left 4 Dead'' is a 2008 first-person shooter game developed by Valve South and published by Valve. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in November 2008 and for Mac OS X in October 2010, and is the first title in the ...
''), when closed captions are activated, dialog and nearly all sound effects either made by the player or from other sources (e.g. gunfire, explosions) will be captioned. Video games don't offer Line 21 captioning, decoded and displayed by the television itself but rather a built-in subtitle display, more akin to that of a DVD. The game systems themselves have no role in the captioning either; each game must have its subtitle display programmed individually. Reid Kimball, a game designer who is hearing impaired, is attempting to educate game developers about closed captioning for games. Reid started th
Games[CC
/nowiki>.html" ;"title="C">Games[CC
/nowiki>">C">Games[CC
/nowiki>group to closed caption games and serve as a research and development team to aid the industry. Kimball designed the Dynamic Closed Captioning system, writes articles and speaks at developer conferences. Games[CC]'s first closed captioning project called Doom3[CC] was nominated for an award a
Best Doom3 Mod of the Year
for IGDA's Choice Awards 2006 show.


Online video streaming

Internet video streaming service
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
offers captioning services in videos. The author of the video can upload a SubViewer (*.SUB), SubRip (*.SRT) or *.SBV file. As a beta feature, the site also added the ability to automatically transcribe and generate captioning on videos, with varying degrees of success based upon the content of the video. However, on August 30, 2020, the company announced that communal captions will end on September 28. The automatic captioning is often inaccurate on videos with background music or exaggerated emotion in speaking. Variations in volume can also result in nonsensical machine-generated captions. Additional problems arise with strong accents,
sarcasm Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection ...
, differing contexts, or
homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definiti ...
s. On June 30, 2010, YouTube announced a new "YouTube Ready" designation for professional caption vendors in the United States. The initial list included twelve companies who passed a caption quality evaluation administered by the Described and Captioned Media Project, have a website and a YouTube channel where customers can learn more about their services and have agreed to post rates for the range of services that they offer for YouTube content.
Flash video Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There ar ...
also supports captions using the Distribution Exchange profile (DFXP) of W3C
timed text Timed text is the presentation of text media in synchrony with other media, such as audio and video. Applications Typical applications of timed text are the real-time subtitling of foreign-language movies on the Web, captioning for people lack ...
format. The latest Flash authoring software adds free player skins and caption components that enable viewers to turn captions on/off during playback from a web page. Previous versions of Flash relied on the Captionate 3rd party component and skin to caption Flash video. Custom Flash players designed in Flex can be tailored to support the timed-text exchange profile, Captionate .XML, or
SAMI Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
file (e.g. Hulu captioning). This is the preferred method for most US broadcast and cable networks that are mandated by the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
to provide captioned on-demand content. The media encoding firms generally use software such as MacCaption to convert
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
captions to this format. The
Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich web applications, similar to Adobe Inc., Adobe's Run time environment, runtime, Adobe Flash. A plugin for Silverlight is still available for a v ...
Media Framework also includes support for the timed-text exchange profile for both download and adaptive streaming media.
Windows Media Video Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technology ...
can support closed captions for both video on demand streaming or live streaming scenarios. Typically, Windows Media captions support the
SAMI Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
file format but can also carry embedded closed caption data.
EBU-TT-D distribution format
supports multiple players across multiple platforms. QuickTime video supports raw
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
caption data via proprietary closed caption track, which are just
EIA-608 EIA-608, also known as "line 21 captions" and "CEA-608", was once the standard for closed captioning for NTSC TV broadcasts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and required by law to be ...
byte pairs wrapped in a QuickTime packet container with different IDs for both line 21 fields. These captions can be turned on and off and appear in the same style as TV closed captions, with all the standard formatting (pop-on, roll-up, paint-on), and can be positioned and split anywhere on the video screen. QuickTime closed caption tracks can be viewed in
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
or
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
versions of QuickTime Player, iTunes (via QuickTime),
iPod Nano The iPod Nano (stylised and marketed as iPod nano) is a discontinued portable media player designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. The first generation model was introduced on September 7, 2005, as a replacement for the iPod Mini, usin ...
,
iPod Classic The iPod Classic (stylized and marketed as iPod classic and formerly iPod Video or just iPod) is a discontinued portable media player created and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. There were six generations of the iPod Classic, as well as a sp ...
, iPod Touch, iPhone, and
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...
.


Theatre

Live plays can be open captioned by a captioner who displays lines from the
script Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...
and including non-speech elements on a large display screen near the stage. Software is also now available that automatically generates the captioning and streams the captioning to individuals sitting in the theater, with that captioning being viewed using heads-up glasses or on a smartphone or computer tablet.


Telephones

A captioned telephone is a
telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
that displays real-time captions of the current conversation. The captions are typically displayed on a screen embedded into the telephone base.


Video conferencing

Some online video conferencing services, such as Google Meet, offer the ability to display captions in real time of the current conversation.


Media monitoring services

In the United States especially, most
media monitoring service A media monitoring service, a press clipping service or a clipping service as known in earlier times, provides clients with copies of media content, which is of specific interest to them and subject to changing demand; what they provide may include ...
s capture and index closed captioning text from news and public affairs programs, allowing them to search the text for client references. The use of closed captioning for television news monitoring was pioneered by Universal Press Clipping Bureau (Universal Information Services) in 1992, and later in 1993 by Tulsa-based NewsTrak of Oklahoma (later known as Broadcast News of Mid-America, acquired by
video news release A video news release (VNR) is a video segment made to look like a news report, but is instead created by a PR firm, advertising agency, marketing firm, corporation, government agency, or non-profit organization. They are provided to television n ...
pioneer Medialink Worldwide Incorporated in 1997). US patent 7,009,657 describes a "method and system for the automatic collection and conditioning of closed caption text originating from multiple geographic locations" as used by news monitoring services.


Conversations

Software programs are available that automatically generate a closed-captioning of conversations. Examples of such conversations include discussions in conference rooms, classroom lectures, or religious services.


Non-linear video editing systems and closed captioning

In 2010,
Vegas Pro Vegas Pro (stylized as VEGAS Pro, colloquially called ''Sony Vegas'') is a video editing software package for non-linear editing (NLE). The first release of Vegas Beta was on June 11, 1999. The software runs on Windows operating systems. Origin ...
, the professional non-linear editor, was updated to support importing, editing, and delivering CEA-608 closed captions. Vegas Pro 10, released on October 11, 2010, added several enhancements to the closed captioning support. TV-like CEA-608 closed captioning can now be displayed as an overlay when played back in the Preview and Trimmer windows, making it easy to check placement, edits, and timing of CC information. CEA708 style Closed Captioning is automatically created when the CEA-608 data is created. Line 21 closed captioning is now supported, as well as HD-SDI closed captioning capture and print from AJA and
Blackmagic Design Blackmagic Design Pty Ltd. is an Australian digital cinema company and hardware manufacturer based in Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It designs and manufactures broadcast and cinema hardware, most notably high-end digital-movie camer ...
cards. Line 21 support provides a workflow for existing legacy media. Other improvements include increased support for multiple closed captioning file types, as well as the ability to export closed caption data for DVD Architect, YouTube, RealPlayer, QuickTime, and Windows Media Player. In mid-2009,
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
released
Final Cut Pro Final Cut Pro is a series of non-linear video editing software programs first developed by Macromedia Inc. and later Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro 10.6.4, runs on Mac computers powered by macOS Big Sur 11.5.1 or later. The ...
version 7 and began support for inserting closed caption data into SD and HD tape masters via FireWire and compatible video capture cards. Up until this time, it was not possible for video editors to insert caption data with both CEA-608 and CEA-708 to their tape masters. The typical workflow included first printing the SD or HD video to a tape and sending it to a professional closed caption service company that had a stand-alone closed caption hardware encoder. This new closed captioning workflow known as e-Captioning involves making a proxy video from the non-linear system to import into a third-party non-linear closed captioning software. Once the closed captioning software project is completed, it must export a closed caption file compatible with the
non-linear editing system Non-linear editing is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by specialized sof ...
. In the case of Final Cut Pro 7, three different file formats can be accepted: a .SCC file (Scenarist Closed Caption file) for Standard Definition video, a QuickTime 608 closed caption track (a special 608 coded track in the .mov file wrapper) for standard-definition video, and finally a QuickTime 708 closed caption track (a special 708 coded track in the .mov file wrapper) for high-definition video output. Alternatively,
Matrox Matrox Graphics, Inc. is a producer of video card components and equipment for personal computers and workstations. Based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada, it was founded in 1976 by Lorne Trottier and Branko Matić. The name is derived from "Ma" in Mat ...
video systems devised another mechanism for inserting closed caption data by allowing the video editor to include CEA-608 and CEA-708 in a discrete audio channel on the video editing timeline. This allows real-time preview of the captions while editing and is compatible with Final Cut Pro 6 and 7. Other non-linear editing systems indirectly support closed captioning only in Standard Definition line-21. Video files on the editing timeline must be composited with a line-21 VBI graphic layer known in the industry as a "blackmovie" with closed caption data. Alternately, video editors working with the DV25 and DV50 FireWire workflows must encode their DV .avi or .mov file with VAUX data which includes CEA-608 closed caption data.


Logo

The current and most familiar logo for closed captioning consists of two Cs (for "closed captioned") inside a television screen. It was created at WGBH. The other logo,
trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...
ed by the
National Captioning Institute The National Captioning Institute, Inc. (NCI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides real-time and off-line closed captioning, subtitling and translation, described video, web captioning, and Spanish captioning for television and film ...
, is that of a simple geometric rendering of a
television set A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...
merged with the tail of a speech balloon; two such versions exist – one with a tail on the left, the other with a tail on the right.


See also

*
Speech-to-text reporter A speech-to-text reporter (STTR), also known as a captioner, is a person who listens to what is being said and inputs it, word for word (wikt:verbatim, verbatim), using an electronic shorthand keyboard, speech recognition software, or a CAT (Com ...
(captioner), an occupation *
Fansub A fansub (short for fan-subtitled) is a version of a foreign film or foreign television program, typically anime or dorama which has been translated by fans (as opposed to an officially licensed translation done by paid professionals) and subtitl ...
*
Same Language Subtitling Same language subtitling (SLS) refers to the practice of subtitling programs on TV in the same language as the audio. Initially introduced in the early 1970s as a means to make services available to the hard of hearing, closed captioning as it beca ...
* Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange (SAMI) file format * Sign language on television * Subtitle (captioning) * Surtitles *
Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL ()) is a World Wide Web Consortium recommended Extensible Markup Language (XML) markup language to describe multimedia presentations. It defines markup for timing, layout, animations, visual t ...
(SMIL) file format


References

;Sources * ''Realtime Captioning... The VITAC Way'' by Amy Bowlen and Kathy DiLorenzo (no ISBN) * ''BBC Subtitles (Captions) Editorial Guideline

' * ''Closed Captioning: Subtitling, Stenography, and the Digital Convergence of Text with Television'' by Gregory J. Downey () * ''The Closed Captioning Handbook'' by Gary D. Robson () * ''Alternative Realtime Careers: A Guide to Closed Captioning and CART for Court Reporters'' by Gary D. Robson () * ''A New Civil Right: Telecommunications Equality for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Americans'' by Karen Peltz Strauss () * ''Enabling The Disabled'' by Michael Karagosian (no ISBN)


External links

*
Closed Captioning of Video Programming - 47 C.F.R. 79.1
From the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
FCC Consumer Facts on Closed Captioning

Alan Newell, Inventor of Closed Captioning, Teletext for the Deaf, 1982
*

From the
Education Resources Information Center The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) is an online digital library of education research and information. ERIC is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the United States Department of Education. Description The missio ...
Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education, Washington D.C.
Bill Kastner: The Man Behind Closed Captioning

First Sears Telecaption adapter advertised in 1980 Sears catalog

BBC Best Practice Guidelines for Captioning and Subtitling (UK)

EBU-TT-D Subtitling (Captions) Distribution Format
{{Video formats Subtitling Assistive technology Deafness Television terminology High-definition television Transcription (linguistics) de:Untertitel#Technische Ausführungen