Subtitles Vs. Closed Captioning: All You Need To Know

Captions vs subtitles give the impression that they are identical. A facade of resemblance hides from view the web of differences between the two. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. 

Closed captioning is for one type of audience while subtitling is for another, and both serve differently. How better you’ve understood your video project and the audience it’s meant for will determine how you choose between the two.

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Closes Captions Meaning: What are Closed Captions?

Anyway, let’s begin with the caption meaning. Knowing what closed captions are may help us identify their subtle differences from subtitles. 

Since we’re a specialised agency providing closed captioning and subtitling services to global clients, questions of the sort: what is the closed caption, what is closed captioning, how are closed captions vs open captions, and more, are posed to us day in and day out.

Wikipedia defines closed captioning as:

“Closed Captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information.”

That pretty much sums up closed captioning meaning as text added to the video to supplement, inform, and interpret the dialogue and soundtrack of the video footage.

Closed Captions Meaning

Let’s now address for a minute: what does closed captioning mean? Or talk a bit about captioning definition, its meaning.

Closed captions are supplementary text added to the video footage describing its dialogue and components of its soundtrack, including background noise, the phone ringing, etc., in the text form for the viewers who cannot hear the audio.

You may also want to read: How to Transcribe an Interview: A Complete Guide to Transcribing Interviews

Open Caption vs Closed Caption

Yes, there’s a difference between open captions vs closed captions, in case you were wondering if there’s any.

Closed Caption Definition

If you’re seeking an answer for what does closed caption mean, here’s a precise definition of it:

Closed captions are text added to the video content that a viewer can turn on and off from view based on his interest and need. 

Open Caption Meaning

Open captions are text always in view and impossible for the viewer to turn on and off. 

Video Captioning

Video captions involve understanding the events and activities in the video and describing the same efficiently through text as it unfolds. That’s how captions for video work and does explain fairly what TV captions mean. 

What Does CC Mean on YouTube?

The CC on YouTube means closed captioning. Closed captioning or CC on YouTube, therefore, is a text version of audio/soundtrack to help viewers, either deaf or hard of hearing, understand the content of the video.

Viewers who don’t need CCs and can hear perfectly well can switch it off. That’s why it’s called closed caption because you can switch it on and off, unlike open caption, which is always on, no matter whether you need it or not.

Netflix Closed Caption

Streaming platforms like Netflix have been using closed captions for a variety of purposes. And it has been the reason why Netflix has grown so popular across language markets in the first place. If English viewers consume, love, and appreciate Spanish, Korean, Indian, Arabic video content, closed captioning is the reason.

Netflix closed captions not just translate foreign language dialogue but also make the content accessible to deaf and hard of hearing. What captions do, whether they be on Netflix or YouTube, is allow for streaming the content even in a noisy environment where it’s hard to listen to anything.

What Does CC Mean in Text?

CC or Closed Captions in the text is subtitles displayed on-screen. CC serves as text-alternative to the verbal dialogue.

Live Captioning: What is Live Captioning?

Live Captions play a critical role in making live events’ content accessible to the audience hard of hearing and deaf, even to those who are non-native speakers of events’ language. Since it’s real-time, the audience doesn’t miss anything. Captioners may be present in person or do it remotely, producing remote real-time captions.

Whichever way they do it, live captioning helps people who understand the written word better than the spoken immensely. Additionally, anyone with a hearing problem can understand the program’s content even in a noisy environment.

Closed Captioning Examples

Closed Captions do not show in text the dialogue only but go a step further to describe other audio cues and sounds. Doing so helps viewers follow the scene in detail. A few common closed captioning examples: Phone rings – when a phone rings in the background; Screaming – when someone screams, the caption text reads.

What are Subtitles?

We can’t even imagine foreign language films without English subtitles; it’s so prevalent today on streaming platforms like Netflix. Likewise, English language films have Amazon Prime subtitles in German. 

But even the best subtitles sometimes fail to express foreign language dialogue accurately. That’s why you need captioners who’ve got true mastery over the source and target language. At Locate Translate, we leverage linguistic expertise to deliver accurate closed captioning and subtitling services to media houses.

Back to subtitle meaning, in case you’re wondering: what is a subtitle or what is subtitling.

A subtitle is the translated text of the dialogue or narrative displayed at the bottom of a television screen or streaming app. 

Subtitles have a specific target audience; it’s the viewers who don’t know the language spoken in the video. What a subtitler does is translate the dialogue into the native language of the viewer. But then there’s another type of subtitling called SDH subtitles. Let’s see what it means.  

SDH Subtitles Meaning

SDH stands for Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. SDH subtitles are a mix of captions and subtitles.

English SDH Meaning

SDH subtitles go a step further to cater to the viewers who don’t understand the language spoken in the video but also happen to be deaf and hard at hearing.

So instead of just English subtitles, you may have English SDH subtitles of, say, Money Heist on Netflix.

Netflix Subtitles

Netflix subtitles play a critical role in making English language films from Hollywood accessible to different language groups. You may want your movie to perform better in Bulgaria, for example. The best way to achieve that feat is by offering Netflix Bulgarian subtitles. Very much is the case with Netflix Portuguese subtitles, Netflix Romanian subtitles in 30+ languages. 

Shortest to say, Netflix subtitles for foreign parts is imperative for anyone aiming to reach a wider audience by making video content more accessible.

What is CC Subtitles?

So far, we’ve explained what are cc subtitles in a detailed manner. Now we’re in a position to explain in a bit more detail what is closed-captioning vs subtitles. In other words, what is the difference between subtitles and closed captions?

What Does CC Mean in Subtitles?

One thing to remember straightaway is the ‘caption subtitle’ are different from each other not just in definition, but in purpose also. So, what is that captioning vs subtitles difference that we allude to here. 

Captions cater to viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Their issue, therefore, is that they cannot hear the audio in a video even if they understand the language being spoken in the video fairly well.

Subtitles cater to viewers who cannot understand the language being spoken in the video, though they hear perfectly well. There is no hearing impairment involved, just a language barrier. That’s it.

Then there’s SDH subtitling, which caters to viewers who have hearing problems and do not understand the language.

Difference Between Closed Captions and Subtitles

So far we’ve understood the purpose of subtitle captioning varies. In fact, the major difference between closed captions and subtitles is that they’re used for different purposes and in different scenarios. What are those, let’s find out.

That breaks through the facade of similarity and brings to fore the imperceptible difference between subtitles and closed captions carry within them. While subtitles are the best way to substitute text for dialogue, closed captions sufficiently describe audio cues external but very much part of the narrative, be it ringing of phones and other background noises.

So, how do you decide what to offer, subtitles or closed captions, to your viewers?

A simple way to decide is knowing your viewership. If you come to understand that your target audience may well be in a noisy environment, making it hard to hear the dialogue, provide subtitles, which is the dialogue in the text form. That’s what subtitle is; the subtitle is the dialogue in text form. 

If the audience has the perfect hearing capability but does not understand the language of the video footage, offer the translated text of the dialogue, which is essentially the subtitle in the native language of your audience. Example: Spanish subtitles for English language films on Netflix.

Sometimes the audience or viewers understand the language of the video, but are not so conversant in the language, and need text displayed on the screen to make sense of the dialogue. In this case, as well, offer subtitles.

But, if your audience can’t hear at all, is deaf or hard of hearing, closed captioning is imperative for the viewers to make sense of the audio. Closed Captioning (CC) is a text description of what happens on screen, its dialogue, background noises, etc.

Subtitling as Translation

Think of subtitling as just another form of translation.  In it, you are taking the foreign language content of a video and translating it into the native language with which your audience is conversant.

Closed Captioning as Description

What does captioning mean? Closed Captioning is another way of describing situations for hearing impaired audiences and proves helpful when playing audio is near impossible or hard.  So, a textual description of people talking, voice and emotional tone, and non-vocal audio relevant to the story comes in handy.

Why Hire a Subtitling Company?

Your project needs professional subtitlers and captioners by your side. That’s why hiring a subtitling company makes sense. At Locate Translate, we can provide professional closed captions and subtitles as required by your project. 

But why Locate Translate, you might ask? 

We’ve in-house professionals with years of expertise in subtitling and captioning and its technical jargon like time-coding, syncing, encoding etc. By choosing us, you can leverage that technical expertise to enhance the accessibility of your video content to a wide variety of audiences. Any font, colour, style, placement you want for your subtitles, we can provide it with that way. 

By outsourcing the project to a subtitling company, you save a lot of labour and time, which you put to good use elsewhere.  It’s affordable, error-free, and hassle-free to hire a subtitling company like Locate Translate, which is reason enough to hire one. 

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