Deciphering the Closed Captioning Process

Closed captioning refers to the written dialogue of aevery lip movement, the caption boxes match in each
film or show that displays on screen-directlyshot, and we've avoided hiding any important visual
corresponding with what is being said. Its main purposeinformation a shot may have. Captions created offline
is to allow people with hearing disabilities to follow thecan either roll up or pop up on the screen. As you
dialogue. With that said, it is also commonly used in loudwould assume, roll-up captions roll up the screen line by
public places such as gyms and bars. The basicline, up to three lines at a time. Pop-up captions pop on
features of closed captioning include: white blockand off the screen in a rectangular box. They include
letters against a black background, monospacedthree lines as well, and usually describe sounds other
letters, a limited set of characters and lines, and thethan words. Because the process is very tedious and
option of turning on and off.time-consuming, they are by far the most expensive to
The word "closed" in the term refers to the fact thatcreate. Factors such as speaking rate and how often
certain electronics are required to make the captionsthe scenes change also must be taken into account.
visible and therefore are seen only by viewers whoHowever, offline captions are the least likely to have
opt for them. Closed captioning is not to be confusedany mistakes given that the writer is able to go back
with subtitles. The difference is that subtitles areand edit them as many times as (s)he wants.
preprogrammed into a film or show and are seen byOn-line captioning, on the other hand, is conducted
all viewers. They are used when viewers can hear thesimultaneously with a broadcast and usually appears in
actor(s) speaking but cannot understand the languagea scrolling format. The three types of on-line captioning
and may be continuously displayed throughout theinclude: real-time captions, live-display captions, and
entire film or show, or only in particular sections.teleprompter captions. Real-time captions are the
Though captions may seem rather easy to include, thecaptions you see during live news, sports, and other
processes involved are actually somewhatlive events. Live-display captions are typically
complicated.incorporated into a program that was previously live
The two general formats of closed captioning arebut is to be broadcasted again. In this case, the
off-line captioning and on-line captioning. Off-linestenographer is able to review the real-time captions
captioning means that the captions are created andthat were applied and make any necessary
incorporated after the product has been recorded. Acorrections. Lastly, teleprompter captions are used
specialized computer program is used by trainedwhen the script for an event has been prepared
caption writers (stenographers) who carefully watchahead of time. As the speaker reads the script, it is
and listen to the dialogue as they enter the informationsimultaneously encoded onto a screen and
into a computer, while also inserting time codes andbroadcasted. Obviously, real-time captions and
position codes to control exactly when and whereteleprompter captions require a highly skilled typist who
each caption will appear on the screen. Each captioncan type accurately and extremely fast.
must be placed precisely so that it matches up to