#Closed captions vs subtitles tv#

When the audience does not understand the spoken language (e.g.

Some examples of when to use subtitles include:

When the audience is deaf or hard of hearing.Some examples of when to use captions include: The decision on when to use subtitles or captions will always depend on the objective and type of video, the audience and the context in which it is being shown. Subtitles are designed to allow people to understand audiovisual content in another language while captions are designed to make audiovisual content accessible for hearing impaired people. The difference between subtitles and captions is their purpose. However, due to the very complex process involved in creating subtitles, machine subtitling tends to be extremely inaccurate and difficult to follow. While most subtitling is undertaken by human translators, machine subtitling is also available. This process involves watching the film just as it would appear to the viewer and making final edits to the text and timing. Simulation – The final stage of subtitling.Consideration must be given to the way text is split over frames so they can be easily understood while staying in sync with the spoken dialogue. Correction – The process of editing the translated text so that it flows naturally and contains accurate punctuation.The translator also takes into account the length of the subtitle required to fit with the timing of the video and the number of characters permitted. Translation – The process of translating the spoken content from the source language into written text in the target language.This involves synchronising the timing of the subtitles with the dialogue so that the translated text is visible on the screen when the relevant visual content is being displayed. Spotting – The process of determining when and for how long the subtitle should display.There are four key stages to subtitle translation: spotting, translation, correction and simulation. Subtitle Translation ProcessĪs subtitle translation involves converting spoken content into written text in a different language, the process of subtitle creation can be quite complex. the difference between a sarcastic laugh and a surprised laugh) the difference in tone. It will also lack some of the extra information provided by human captioners such as emotional tone as ASR technology is not differentiate (e.g. Using ASR technology without human assistance is prone to contextual errors and mistakes. If a human captioner is not available, machine translation is also an option. They also add other audio information such as background noises, music and verbal nuances. They then go through and manually fix errors made by the ASR (e.g. The captioner will listen to the original text and repeat the words very clearly so the ASR technology cannot mishear them. If the captioner has access to Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology, they may choose to use this to speed up the captioning process. During live broadcasts, the captioner listens to the broadcast in real-time and types the words and sounds as they hear them.

#Closed captions vs subtitles tv#

For example, when captioning TV shows or movies that are not live, the captioner may watch the video while also referring to a script in order to create accurate captions. The process of creating captions will vary depending on the technology available and whether the broadcast is live or delayed. While open captions are always on and cannot be switched off.

While subtitles are often in a different language from the source video, closed captions are often in the same language.Ĭlosed captions differ from open captions in that they can be switched on and off by the viewer. Subtitles are commonly used by people that don’t understand the audio language, captions are usually used to make audiovisual content accessible to people who are hearing impaired (or in contexts where audio is switched off or not available). Subtitles assume that the viewer can hear the film’s audio but can’t understand the spoken language while closed captions assume the viewer cannot hear the audio at all and require text description for everything. One of the most common uses of subtitle translation is for movies and TV.Ĭlosed captions provide a written transcript of a video’s dialogue but with the addition of text descriptions of sounds such as music, phones ringing, doors slamming, explosions etc. Once translated, the written subtitles are synced up with the images, so that viewers who do not understand the spoken language can understand the content by reading the subtitles. Subtitle translation is the process of translating spoken dialogue from a video into written text in a different language.