Open Captions, Closed Captions and Subtitles: What is the Difference?

Closed captions are only displayed on the screen when viewers wish to see them, and they can be turned on or off by the viewer who decodes or activates this option. Open captions (also called ‘burned-in” or hard-coded captions) are always in view, and cannot be turned off. Captions are on screen text that tries to describe spoken dialogue, and use words or symbols to describe essential information such as the identity of speakers, music, and other sound effects. They are synchronized with the video image.

Video in the form of computer-based multimedia is increasingly used in Web-based applications. Without captions, people who with hearing disabilities cannot access the audio parts of such applications. Videos displayed on the Internet may also have open captions or closed captions. Closed captions only appear on Web-based applications if the media viewer software supports them.

Closed caption and open caption advantages and disadvantages:

• Closed captions need to be activated by the viewer, both on television screens and in media viewer software. This may be a disadvantage.
• Closed captions exist as a separate text stream, meaning that they can be saved separately from the video content. This is an advantage.
• An obvious advantage of open captions is that they do not need viewer activation.
• Open captions are an actual part of the video stream and cannot be saved and searched separately; a disadvantage.
• When captioned video is compressed, open captions may deteriorate in quality.
• Closed captions do not deteriorate if the video is compressed since they form a separate text stream.

Subtitles

In many parts of the world, no distinction is made between the term “subtitles” and the term “closed captions.” In the United Kingdom , captioning is often called “subtitling for the hard of hearing.” In this case, the subtitles will include description of non-speech sounds. In the U.S. and Canada , “subtitles” simply translate the speech elements of a video into another language. They are not the same as deaf captions since they are intended for viewers who can hear, but cannot understand the language spoken.

Californiatranscription.com has earned a leading position in the U.S. captioning industry. Our expert caption writers are skilled in both closed captioning and open captioning, and we also provide subtitling services. All three services are available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German. Our live captioning professionals write to the highest broadcast industry specifications, and can be available via telephone and audio connection to wherever your program or webcast event is taking place.

Californiatranscription.com provides expert captioning and subtitling services to clients from a broad range of industries in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K. Call us today to learn about these services.