Subtitles and Captions

The difference between subtitles and captions

Subtitles are usually created for viewers who can hear the speech, the audio and any sound effects, but they do not understand the language being spoken.

If your target audience is Spanish-speaking for example but the source language of your video material or film is English, you may require us to produce Spanish subtitles for you so that your audience can understand what is being said.

Closed captions are generally added so that the Deaf and hard-of hearing are better able to experience the video. Closed captions provide extra information such as speaker changes, noises such as a door slamming and other audio elements. Closed captions can be turned on and off depending on who is viewing the material and their particular requirements.

“Open” captions provide the same function as “closed” captions except that they cannot be turned off and are always on view.

We can create subtitles in the same language as the source material, or in any other languages. Just let us know what you need.

The art of providing perfect subtitles and captions

So what are our subtitlers trying to achieve when they start work creating your subtitle or caption file? To make the experience of watching the video as meaningful and satisfying as if you were able to hear and understand without subtitles.

The best subtitles are those that the viewer almost forgets are even there! The text needs to be readable, to capture the spirit of the original speech as closely as possible, to be well timed and not obscuring something crucial appearing on-screen.

Much of the above applies to creating the perfect captions, except in addition, our linguists must include audio events that form part of the viewing experience.

Subtitles for the Deaf and hard of hearing (SDH)

SDH are intended for viewers who are Deaf or head-of-hearing and also do not understand the source language being spoken. It is the most comprehensive form of subtitles as they include all non-verbal sounds and also provide a translation of what is being said.

Good SDH creators are very skilful as they need to encapsulate everything non-visual, construct meaningful subtitles in a different language – and to know how to put this information together so that the onscreen visual action is not compromised. When there is a lot of dialogue and other (important) sound effects happening at the same time, the linguist must make decisions about how to prioritise the information without adversely affecting the viewing experience.

Real-time or live captioning

To help you reach a wider audience, we can provide live stream captioning for your conference, event or meeting. Choose between human, computer-generated captions or a mixture of both in the languages you need, including sign language.

Live captioning is specifically for live events and to help the Deaf and hard-of-hearing to participate and engage in events such as a live webinar. The live captioner and the participant will join the event at the same time and will begin captioning so that the captions can be accessed in real time.

If you have an upcoming event, do get in touch with the details. We’d love to help.

Post-event subtitle and caption service

Some of our clients choose to recycle their live events by editing the video content and re-using it on their social media pages and websites. Just let us know if you need our team to add subtitles or captions to your cut-down versions – we’d be happy to help!

Output format of the subtitles and captions

Using subtitling software, we can provide subtitles in virtually any language and produce the end result in most industry-standard formats such as:

• Avid STL
• Ayato
• BDN XML
• Blue-ray
• CapMaker Plus
• Cavena
• Cheetah
• D-Cinema
• DVD Studio Pro STL
• EBU STL
• EDL
• FinalCut Pro
• PAC
• Subrip SRT
• VobSub

If you don’t see the format you need, just ask, as we will probably still be able to help.

If you prefer, we can simply embed the subtitles onto your video so they are immediately visible to the viewer.