Description

A Short History of Captioning

Please watch the short video about captioning and accessibility, from the silent movie era to broadcast television.

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What is captioning?

If you’re going to caption, it’s best to become familiar with captioning as a user. Go watch a tv show or a movie and turn on the captions. But before going further, do you know what captions are?

There are two kinds of captioning:

• Real Time, or CART captioning (CART stands for Communication Access Realtime Translation), and

• Post production captioning

This course covers post production captioning for the web.

Real time or CART captioning is done live by a trained court reporter. The real time captioner handles live events, such as news and sporting events. The viewer sees the captions in real time, as the CART caption writer creates them. While CART caption writers strive for accuracy, some mistakes, e.g., spelling, word substitutions, and so forth, are inevitable given the time restraints involved.

Post production captioning, often referred to as just captioning, is when the captioning is added after the show is produced. The captioner has time to review the video, becoming familiar with its content and researching such things as the correct spellings of persons, places, or things, as well as specialized vocabulary, e..g, (acronyms, specialized terms, etc.).

For the purposes of this course, we’re focusing on post production captioning. We are for the web, and specifically, for videos that are or will be posted on YouTube.

In Canada and the US, captioning is usually called Closed Captioning, or “CC”. Sometimes, on media such as DVDs, captions may be referred to as “Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired”. While “subtitles” usually refers to translation (e.g., from the native language spoken in the video to a second language: the video’s native language might be French while the available subtitles are English). Outside of North America, the terms captioning and subtitles are used interchangeably.

The caption symbol is often depicted as the letters “CC” inside of a box that is shaped like a television. Alternately, a speech bubble may be used, either with or within the use of the “cc”.

I’ve been implying television, but so many of us watch video on the Internet these days. Many of us have been “cord cutting.” We are watching our tv shows and movies online. For that. we have Netflix, iTunes, YouTube, Amazon, and other services. Many of these large video streaming services provide users with the option to watch captioned content.

Who uses captioning? So who is the audience for captioned media?

It would be easy to say someone with hearing loss, but what are your experiences with captioned media?

In the ‘Top Ten Reasons to Caption Your Video’ list that follows, you’ll see how captioning can benefit many people, including those with hearing loss.

Top 10 Reasons to Caption

1. Captions compensate for noisy backgrounds or where sound isn't allowed.
2. They provide a solution for poor audio quality
3. Quickly browse the video by reading the associated text as you drag the controller as the captions are always visible
4. Everyone can see the correct spellings of people, places, and things.
5. Catch details that normally slide by unnoticed.
6. Meet the Web Accessibility guidelines, along with any state, provincial and federal requirements.
7. Use captioning to provide alternate language tracks
8. Provide additional support for people who are learning English as a second language
9. Make your content fully accessible to people who have hearing loss.
10. Video on the web can even look better when the captioning is on.

Captions can be an amazing learning tool as well. Please read Bill Stark’s short article “Read Captions Across America!”, about an initiative to promote reading and motivate young children to read. With captioning, “add print to the sound and TV becomes a reading tutor.”

What follows is list of benefits that as highlighted in the article:

Some Educational Benefits of Captioning

• Captions help children with word identification, meaning, acquisition, and retention.

• Reading captions is motivating to reading.

• Captions can help children establish a systematic link between the written word and the spoken word.

• Pre-readers, by becoming familiar with captions, will have familiar signposts when they begin reading print-based material.

• Captioning has been related to higher comprehension skills when compared to viewers watching the same media without captions.

• Children who have a positive experience in reading will want to read; reading captions provides such an experience.

• Reading is a skill that requires practice, and practice in reading captions is practice with authentic text.

• Captions provide missing information for individuals who have difficulty processing speech and auditory components of the visual media (whether this difficulty is due to a hearing loss or a cognitive delay).

• Students often need assistance in learning content-relevant vocabulary (in biology, history, literature, and other subjects), and with captions they see both the terminology (printed word) and the visual image.

• Captioning is essential for deaf and hard of hearing children, can be very beneficial to those (Lewis) (Sundius) learning English as a second language, can help those with reading and literacy problems, and can help those who are learning to read.

Discussion Question - Captions and how they are useful

We often talk about how curb cuts are great for people who use wheelchairs, but are also great for many other activities as well, ranging from pushing a baby stroller to skateboarding. Captioning is like an electronic curb cut.

Using the online discussion forum, share your own experiences regarding captioning with the course mentor, as well as others who may be taking this course at the same time as you.

How have captions been useful, or even entertaining, to you and others you know? Can you add or elaborate on any of the ideas presented in the two lists above: “Ten Top Reasons to Caption” and “Some Educational Benefits of Captioning”.

Join the discussion here, ensuring that the "Is this for an assignment?" dropdown is set to the name of this lesson.

Captioning Legislation

Closed captioning requirements for television have been in effect since the 1970s in the US and slightly later in Canada.

Requirements for captioning on the Internet are coming into focus.

In the US, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act covers accessibility for telecommunications, including captioning on the web.

In Ontario, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) requires WCAG2 Compliance. WCAG2 is an international standard that covers web accessibility. Captioned media for the web is one of its requirements. A number of countries have integrated WCAG2 into their legislation and practices.

Watch captioned content for a Week

I’d like you to spend a week watching what you watch with the caption on. As you watch with the captions “on”, using the discussion forum, share your experiences and ideas with the course mentor, as well as other students who may be taking this course at the same time as you.

If this is your first time watching captioned video, you’ll have to turn the captions on by locating the caption preferences. This will depend on the device you’re using. On your television, look for “CC” on your remote, or search for the “CC” option in the tv or cable box setup panel.

If you’re watching Netflix on your computer, look for the caption speech bubble at the bottom of the video. iTunes has a caption option under the Controls menu. Look for the ‘Audio and Captions’ menu item. On YouTube, look for the “cc” option under the video.

On iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads, captions can be turned on and off by going to Settings - General - Accessibility, and look for Subtitles and Captions under the Media heading. Do a search on other mobile devices for these settings.

How popular is video on the internet? Netflix currently accounts for 37% of bandwidth usage in North America. YouTube covers nearly 13% of bandwidth usage.

Continue to Module 2 - Introducing YouTube’s Caption Infrastructure »