You may wonder what is closed captioning? And why is it needed? This thought occurs to many people when they first hear the term. Written text on a video, that gives the viewers an idea of what is going on is called Captioning. The text describes both, the speech of the actors as well as the background sounds. Captioning is done to aid the deaf and hard of hearing to understand the content given in the video and grasp the information from it.
Open Captioning, Closed Captioning and The Subtitles
The term ‘Open Captioning’ is used when a video has a fixed captioning on it, that is the viewer cannot turn off the captions even if they want to. ‘Closed Captioning’, on the other hand, are the captions that appear on a video and can be switched on and off according to the viewer’s preferences. Captioning is not only a written format of the spoken words on the screen, but the written captions also contain exclamations, music indications and sound effects of all that are happening on the screen.
Now you may try to connect closed captions to subtitles that you find on the videos. True, they are mostly the same but are still different. Subtitles only display the text of what is spoken in the video. Subtitles are also helpful for those who don’t speak the language of the video as their first or second language.
Where is Closed Captioning used?
Captioning is being done offline for an already recorded video. The main thing is to make sure that accurate text is displayed on the screen at the correct time. Synchronization is an important part of the process. It shouldn’t distract the viewer’s attention from the video. And a lot of work goes into doing just this.
Captioning is normally used in the multimedia industry, that includes televisions, social media, and music videos. Besides these, it is also used by other industries as well such as universities, businesses, etc. It is used almost everywhere. 80% of the people who are using closed captioning today aren’t deaf, but they prefer it as it gives them clarity and understanding.
Aspects of Closed Captioning Rates
There are certified closed captioning services performing captioning for different industries and business. For instance, closed captioning services in New York vastly help businesses in the United States, by offering their services at modified rates. Closed captioning rates are dependent on the length of the video and many other factors like volume of the project, language selection, etc., and the charges are on a per-minute basis.
The closed captioning rates will increase if the captions have to be translated from one particular language to a completely different language during the process. The estimated time will depend upon the size of the project. 24-hour services are also offered for immediate requirements and you might need to pay a bit more for urgent services.
