
Captions can be a direct video dialogue, a description of video action or background noise, or speaker identification. CaptionsĬaptions are “the display of the text version of speech within a video.” Captions are in the same language of the original video. There are Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH) that include information such as sound effects, speaker identification, and any other essential nonspeech features. For example, a person speaking with a strong accent or speaking very quiet.

Subtitles are also used as a written rendering of the dialogue in the same language, if the spoken language is too difficult to understand. Subtitles are “the translation of the text display of a video’s dialogue into another language.” Subtitles, similar to captions, are superimposed onto the video and allow a person to understand content in their non-native language. The primary difference between subtitles and captions is their intended audience. Captions provide a word for word transcription of dialogue and subtitles are a translation language spoken. What about subtitles? Is there a difference between captions (both open and closed) and subtitles? The quick answer is yes, they have similar characteristics but are not the same. This is so people who are deaf or hard of hearing can benefit from these videos. In order to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) there needs to be captions added to those billions of hours of video we consume. It is safe to say we consume a lot of video content daily. According to YouTube, globally over 2 billion logged-in users visit the site and watch over a billion hours of videos.
