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.

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.