Closed Captioning Services and its Necessity

A caption is the portrayal of spoken dialogues, acts, scenes, contexts, or background score present in the video content in the form of transcribed text. When viewed without proper contemplation, the importance of captioning gets might seem overhyped, but the statistics are clear (and we will be discussing them), captioning help in garnering more viewership and thus sales. This article is intended to explain the significance of closed captioning services  in the overview of video content making.

Let’s Look at Some Statistics

The Nielsen poll in 2018 revealed that an average American in a day spends about 6 hours of their internet time watching videos on the internet. As such companies have tried to pander to this audience base with video advertisement. Another glaring statistic – About reported 500 million viewers to watch 100 million hours of video content on Facebook daily. Among the 500 million viewers, API reports that 85% of these videos are being watched without audio.

Some More Captioning Statistics

Research conducted by Facebook for business shows that 80% of viewers reacted adversely to video advertisements that played noisily, thus urging advertisers to caption their videos. The study also found that captioning surges the average view time of ads by 12%, some advertising studies have cited that captioning increases video viewership by up to 25%.

Necessity by Law

Video programming distributors (VPDs) are required by the 2010 Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) to provide a close caption to their video contents. This also includes those videos shown over the internet after having been shown on the TV. Also, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a law that requiring places of public accommodation to be made accessible to those with disabilities.

The FCC requires captions to have four qualities – Accuracy, Synchronicity, Completeness, and Placements. The subtitles should provide proper spelling, timing, and grammar. It also requires a synchronous run between content and captions (with a little leeway provided for live captioning). FCC also demands completeness of captions from the beginning of the program to the end and placement of subtitles such that it doesn’t obstruct the on-screen content.

Broad Benefits

The fact that laws are made to address accessibility to those with disabilities, however, doesn’t diminish the importance of captioning. The EFHOH has listed the following to be the benefits of subtitling a video: 

• Benefits everyone with hearing difficulty, especially the aging population – considering 5% of the world has a problem with hearing

• Helps in cultivating the reading level among children

• Helps improve the reach of a language among deaf children

• Improves the understanding of language among foreign nationals and second-language speakers

• Benefits bilingual, sign, and spoken language speakers

• Helps in removing social barriers

Closed Captioning with Online Closed Captioning Services

The FCC mandates closed captioning or Media Captioning Services to reflect what is in the program’s audio track by matching the dialogue, music, and sounds, and identifying the speakers – hence is employed by TV and online programs. Often times, open captioning does not require a special functionality media player so it is often employed by cinemas to provide captioning.

Online captioning services are recognized for their excellent professionalism, upkeeping confidentiality, and utmost regard to work ethics. Captioners are well versed in different dialects, slang, and cultural references. They make sure that even minor flicks and rolls of tongues or stutters and Awws don’t go awry – such that your videos have an optimal impact, zeal, and effect.

Online video captioning services ensure excellent-quality, convenience, and fast turnaround time (TAT) at transparent rates. Using online captioning is as easy as ABC – you begin by uploading the video you want to be captioned. The content is forwarded to captioner(s) (depending on volume and need). Once captioning for the content is completed, the second set of eyes (and ears) goes over the completed project ensuring captions are of the finest quality.