CLOSED CAPTIONING AND SUBTITLING
SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE YOUR WORKFLOW

WHAT IS CLOSED CAPTIONING?

The data portion of a television program that is displayed onto television screens for the benefit of hearing impaired viewers who may have difficulty hearing and following along.The text is displayed upon activation of the CC feature on remote controls thus providing a transcript of the on screen dialog.

WHAT ARE SUBTITLES?

Very similar in nature to Closed Captions, Subtitles offer the viewer information about programming from an indexing standpoint as well as chapter markers.Some may refer to Subtitles as Closed Captions but technically they are not the same.

FCC CLOSED CAPTIONING RULES

FCC rules for TV closed captioning ensure that viewers who are deaf and hard of hearing have full access to programming, address captioning quality and provide guidance to video programming distributors and programmers. The rules apply to all television programming with captions, requiring that captions be:

Accurate: Captions must match the spoken words in the dialogue and convey background noises and other sounds to the fullest extent possible.
Synchronous: Captions must coincide with their corresponding spoken words and sounds to the greatest extent possible and must be displayed on the screen at a speed that can be read by viewers.
Complete: Captions must run from the beginning to the end of the program to the fullest extent possible.
Properly placed: Captions should not block other important visual content on the screen, overlap one another or run off the edge of the video screen.

The rules distinguish between pre-recorded, live, and near-live programming and explain how the standards apply to each type of programming, recognizing the greater hurdles involved with captioning live and near-live programming.

CEA 608 / 708

CEA-608 or “Line 21 Captions”, is the former standard in Closed Captioning. This format utilized the odd or even fields of line 21 with an odd parity bit in the active-video data area in NTSC (North American Television format) CEA-708 is the modernized standard for Closed Captioning as formats have changed in recent years, thus altering the way captions are decoded.

EXEMPT PROGRAMMING

Currently there are two categories of exemptions from the closed captioning rules, self-implementing and economically burdensome:

Self-implementing exemptions include public service announcements shorter than 10 minutes and not paid for with federal dollars, programming shown from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., and programming primarily textual. There is also an exemption for locally produced non-news programming with no repeat value. See a complete list of self-implementing exemptions.
The FCC has established procedures for petitioning for an exemption from the closed captioning rules when compliance would be economically burdensome. Find out about the economically burdensome exemption.
Even if a program or a provider is exempt under the Commission’s rules, it may still have obligations under other federal laws to make its video programming accessible to individuals with disabilities.

ARE CLOSED CAPTIONS NECESSARY?

Implementing Closed Captions into your television program or movie is a vital element in the production process.By implementing Captions, you are expanding your ability to connect and engage your audience, thus effectively reducing the chances of disconnecting with those who may experience hearing loss or for environments in which the volume is either muted or not loud enough such as in restaurants or sports bars.

EXAMPLE EQUIPMENT SETUP

PRODUCTION CAMERAS

SWITCHER

BROADCAST SERVER

CLOSED CAPTIONING ENCODER

EXAMPLE EQUIPMENT SETUP

PRODUCTION CAMERAS

SWITCHER

BROADCAST SERVER

CLOSED CAPTIONING ENCODER

CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK

The primestar process

Schedule your broadcast within your portal (min 48hours advance)
Point your broadcast to us (using your established portal account)
Our system will connect to your live human captioner for insertion
Live broadcast continues to your pre established destinations (no noticeable delay in most cases)
Broadcast is delivered to your audience with no video loss. If your destination player support closed captions, viewer simply click onto the icon and select the desired language
Video on demand file will be ready, 4 hours, post broadcast

CLOSED CAPTIONING