Click the track you want to add captions in the Outline tab.  Go to the Inspector and click the Other tab.  Next, click the Choose button that is under the Closed Caption (Line 21) heading.  Find and select the appropriate .scc file for that specific track.  Once the .scc file is imported, the option for Filed 1 (Top) recorded will be selected.  This is the correct setting, so leave this option as-is. It is important to note that you will need a corresponding .scc file for each track on the DVD, so this process may need to be repeated depending on the complexity of the DVD project.

The DVD is now authored with captions and ready to burn.  Once the burning process is finished, be sure to check the DVD by watching it on a television set or monitor with a closed caption decoder.  Turn the closed captioning setting on and verify that the DVD plays with captions.   Occasionally, certain DVD players or cords will not transmit closed captioning data correctly to the monitor, so it may be necessary to check on additional DVD players.

Including captions in the DVD authoring process is a easy as these few steps and is also very rewarding as it provides access for additional people to view your project.  For help creating captions and getting a .scc file for your next DVD project, contact rhawthorne [at] captionlabs.com today.

Although Netflix was not required by law to provide closed captioning on their service, there was an immediate public outcry for accessibility for consumers.

Officials said in 2009 they were working on the technology to encode, and to allow viewers to turn captions on and off.

As of Feb. 24, 2011, 30 percent of the enormous Netflix library is captioned. That represents about 3,500 items in television programs alone, a huge leap from just 100 foreign movie titles that were available with subtitles in April 2010.

Netflix officials say 80 percent of the library will be captioned by the end of 2011. Captioning is available as part of the regular subscription price, which starts at about $8 per month.

Netflix is working hard towards a resolution to accommodate their hard-of-hearing customers, and to communicate progress through periodic blog posts and tweets (@netflixhelps), but the struggle is indicative of the culture as a whole.

It’s immeasurably easier to be a deaf person today that it was, say, 100 years ago. But there are still daily reminders that the world is tailored to the hearing. The smart business owner will take this into consideration when marketing his product.

Large corporations often have an image of global awareness, of inclusiveness, of solidarity with their public — think Coke, Target, Apple. But something like the initial lack of captioning for Netflix makes the consumer wonder, how aware are these companies of the hard-of-hearing population? If we apply for a job, will training materials be captioned? What other difficulties might we face as employees?

Those who aren’t practicing internal accessibility would be wise to begin, and even wiser to consider their image with consumers. It’s beyond frustrating to watch uncaptioned commercials. Like everyone else, deaf people want to know what this political candidate is promising and why that laundry detergent is the very best. If one product captions and another doesn’t, the viewer is going to have an automatic bias. That hurts the non-captioning company and potentially hurts the consumer as well.

Netflix officials kept their customers in the loop by detailing their struggle with captions. Several avenues they tried took enormous amounts of time and data storage, but they ended up winning the fight and are on their way to accessibility.

The deaf public is sensitive to the fact that not every company has the resources to undertake such a huge endeavor. But don’t write us off entirely. We’re out here and we have money to spend. Don’t discount the value of our dollars when plotting your marketing plan.

Update: In January 2011, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) began collaborating with the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) and Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson, P.C., a premiere civil rights law firm, to explore the legal implications of the failure of Netflix to provide closed captioning on “Watch Instantly” streamed movies.  Read more here…

In our society today, though, time spent with books is overshadowed by hours spent in front of a screen. To take advantage of this fact and improve literacy rates, the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) sponsors Read Captions Across America, held this year on March 2.

The theory is that it doesn’t matter where the human brain soaks up the written word – a paper page, broadcast program, DVD, CD-ROM or internet. Any time letters and words are put in front of a person’s eyes, his brain will have practice in breaking the code that is our written language.

Captions aren’t just for the deaf. Experts say motivation, comprehension and vocabulary all increase when captions are turned on for kids.

Visit any preschool in the country and you’re likely to find word walls, and labels on everything from the bookshelf to the bathroom to the class hamster. Using captions with electronic resources mimics that word-rich environment.

In daily life, kids may be exposed to the writing on a cereal box, a street sign, a church marquis. Using captions when the tv is on at home can expose them to an infinitely wide range of things from outside their immediate surroundings – sports, economics, art, science and history.

Captions also work for adults who are trying to learn a new language. Hearing the spoken word helps us learn like babies do, but seeing that word in writing helps us make higher connections – it links the new language to the root words of our own language, cementing these lessons in our brains. Try watching your favorite film with the subtitles on in another language and see if it isn’t a whole new experience.

To promote Read Captions Across America, DCMP loans free educational materials to teachers, families and organizations – anyone who registers for the program.

The organization keeps a database of captioned educational resources and supports efforts by parents and educators to increase the availability of captions.

Want to promote Read Captions Across America? Get in touch with DCMP for free flyers, posters, bookmarks and other items that can be distributed in your community.

Find out more at readcaptionsacrossamerica.org.

After doing my own personal survey, I have realized that most people don’t have a good understanding of the basic types of captions. Sure, everyone is familiar with them at some level, but many people don’t understand the different types and uses of captions, and why captions are set up the way they are.

So if you’ve ever wondered why captions are done a certain way, or if you just want to show off your superior captioning knowledge at your next company picnic, keep on reading.

Subtitles

To set the record straight, subtitles are not captions.  However, I’ve included them here because it is important to understand what makes them different from captions.

Closed captions were developed for the deaf and hard-of-hearing audience to be able to read along with the TV program they are watching.  The technology allows captions to be “encoded” into the video signal and transmitted over the air (or played from tape) to the viewer’s home.  A “decoder” chip installed in the viewer’s TV set (or set-top box) allows the captions to be turned on or off.  Usually, the text has white letters on a black background and can be placed in many different areas of the screen.  Closed captioning technology has been around for many years and is now required on almost all broadcast TV programs.

Subtitles are a little different.  They were developed to allow the viewer to read text translated from a foreign language.  They could be presented in a wide array of font and color combinations and almost never have a black background.  The text is not encoded into the video signal, so there is no way to turn them on or off using a TV set decoder. The introduction of DVD changed that slightly. Subtitles used in DVD or Blu-ray can be turned on or off from the DVD menu. In addition, DVD and Blu-ray usually offer the viewer the choice of watching subtitles in one of multiple languages.

Captioning is a different thing altogether, and there are two captioning methods widely in use today.

Roll-up Captioning

Just like this term implies, the captions roll up the screen line by line.  Usually two or three lines of text are displayed on the screen at a time, either at the top or bottom of the screen.  Because this is the most basic form of captions, a simple double chevron is often used to indicate speaker changes (>>) and only minimal sound effect descriptions are included.

This type of captioning is used for all live event broadcasts and some post-production broadcasts that have few speaker changes. Roll-up captions are a very popular style for broadcast because this style is more economical and requires less time to produce and format.  The downside to roll-up captions is that they are often harder to follow. As the captions roll by, it may become difficult to comprehend details such as speaker changes and sound effects when they occur in quick succession.

Pop-on Captioning

This is the most descriptive form of captions.  The text “pops” on and off the screen in sync with the audio.  Each caption usually consists of two or three lines of text and is carefully placed on the screen to avoid covering graphics and faces while also identifying the speaker.  Sound effect description is also included in the pop-on style.

Pop-on captions are the easiest to read and comprehend, but the process of creating them is much more detailed, time intensive, and more of a financial burden for small broadcasters.

No matter which method is used, captioning itself proves to be a useful tool, and one viewers will appreciate, whatever their reasons for using the captioning.

**Note: The statements made about closed captions refer to CEA-608 Line 21 captioning.  CEA-708 captions that are created for ATSC digital streams have a wide range of additional features that we have not attempted to explore in this article.

Captions are also widely used in public places where noise or other distractions make them a welcome addition. Health clubs, restaurants, bars and airports all make use of captions, allowing people to stay plugged in while they are socializing, working out, or waiting for their flight to be announced.

It is in these environments that the majority of hearing citizens are exposed to captions. Public caption use is becoming such a part of our culture that government is getting in on the act. There is a bill in the works that could require bars in Maryland to display captions on all televisions [read more].  Some legislators want captions on all sets, while others think captions should be turned on only when requested. In either case, most of the legislators seem to agree that it is important to make captions available for those who need them.

If you have a profound hearing loss, there’s no question that you need captions. But beyond the issue of need, there are a few things captions can do that benefit society as a whole.

It’s not too surprising when you think about it, but captions are an excellent learning tool.  Research has shown improvement in motivation, reading comprehension and vocabulary when hearing children are shown text captions along with audio and video. Just like “word walls” that are so highly recommended in schools throughout our country, captioning continues that text-rich environment of the classroom, and carries it to each child’s TV time. Using captions mimics the techniques used in educational videos, but instead of learning just colors and numbers, a child can discover new vocabulary in anything that comes across your TV set — words that pertain to sports, economics, geography or far-away cultures.

Captions also benefit hearing adults who are trying to learn a new language. The ability to see the spoken word in films, television and Internet videos greatly increases retention of new words and their meanings. When we see the written words, it is much easier to pick up on connections between our native language and the new words, cementing these language lessons in our minds. The great part is that the learning happens almost effortlessly.

Captions are a great tool for both the hearing and the hard-of-hearing communities. Try it out for yourself.  During family TV time, turn on the captions and see the difference it makes in your kid’s reading and comprehension. Next time you rent a DVD, turn on the subtitles in Spanish or French. You’ll be amazed at what you learn!

In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, many product developers seem to forget to build-in caption accessibility.  We’ve heard countless comments and complaints about the lack of captioning on Netflix, internet videos and other new technologies.  Regardless of the reasons, captions seem to easily get overlooked as new products are rushed to market.

That’s why we were pleasantly surprised to see that the new Apple iPad has built-in support for captioning.  Although this is only one little item in the product’s spec sheet, it shows that Apple cares and understands the importance of giving accessibility to everyone.

The iPad looks like an oversized iPhone or iPod Touch and features a 9.7’ LCD screen.  In addition to watching captioned videos, the iPad features include gaming, email, photos, contacts, maps, music and e-books.  Prices will range between $499 and $829.

Well, here’s a little tip that may save your small business some money.  If you have closed captioned programming, you may be eligible to receive a tax credit for providing accessibility to persons with disabilities.  It’s called the Disabled Access Credit and is reported on IRS form 8826.

Your small business could qualify to receive a tax credit of up to half of your closed-captioning expenses.  Do the math.  If you’ve closed-captioned a weekly show, you may have up to $5,000 in tax credits.  Of course, every situation is different, so you need to consult a tax professional to see if your situation qualifies.

Here’s some info as provided by the U.S. Department of Labor.

What is it?
Small businesses may take an annual tax credit for making their businesses accessible to persons with disabilities.

Who is eligible?
Small businesses are eligible if they, in the previous year, earned a maximum of $1 million in revenue or had 30 or fewer full-time employees.

What is the amount?
The credit is 50% of expenditures over $250, not to exceed $10,250, for a maximum benefit of $5,000. The credit amount is subtracted from the total tax liability.

With only a few exceptions, all programming for broadcast in the United States must be closed captioned.  The rules for the requirement of closed captions were directed by the U.S. Congress in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and became effective starting in 1998.  Since then, the required amount of captioning has been steadily increasing. Today, nearly 100% of all English and Spanish language programming is closed captioned.

The FCC has created a fact sheet for more information on closed captioning for broadcast. It tells exactly what closed captioning is, who has to provide it, and what media are affected by the laws. The fact sheet also has information about how to file a complaint if someone isn’t following captioning rules and, if you’re a provider, some ideas for how not to become the recipient of such complaints. The fact sheet can be found here.

Federal and State Electronic Information Technology (EIT)

Federal agencies must make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities as required by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, a piece of legislation that was strengthened by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.  In part, Section 508 requires that “all training and informational video and multimedia productions which support the agency’s mission, regardless of format, that contain speech or other audio information necessary for the comprehension of the content, shall be open or closed captioned”. For more information, visit http://www.section508.gov.

In addition, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires state and local governments to ensure effective communication with individuals with disabilities where necessary to ensure that communications with individuals with hearing, vision, or speech impairments are as effective as communications with others. The public entity must provide appropriate auxiliary aids.

This means that, one way or another, government has to make all of the information available to all people. This may mean providing a transcription of a meeting after the fact. Many state and local governments are opting instead to caption webcast meetings so that hearing-impaired citizens can participate in much the same way as any hearing person.

The Future

There is currently a movement to pass legislation that will define and regulate accessibility for developing technology.  H.R. 3101 was introduced in June 2009 by Edward Markey (D-MA).  Called the “Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009,” this legislation will, if enacted, amend the nation’s Communications Act.  With more than 240 national, state, and community-based organizations supporting the legislation, and with telecommunications becoming more essential to our daily lives all the time, it looks like it won’t be long before captions will be required across all forms of visual media.

Update:

The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act was signed into law in October 2010.  For more updated information, please click here.