Subtitles Vs. Closed Captioning: All You Need To Know

Captions and subtitles are often mistaken for being identical. A facade of resemblance conceals the web of differences between the two. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. 

Closed captioning and subtitling serve different audiences, and both are used for different purposes. How well you understand your video project and its target audience will determine how you choose between the two.

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Closed Captions Meaning: What are Closed Captions?

Anyway, let’s begin with the caption’s meaning. Understanding closed captions can help us distinguish them from subtitles. 

Since we’re a specialised agency providing closed captioning and subtitling services to global clients, we’re asked questions like: what is closed captioning, how are closed captions vs open captions, and more, 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: text added to the video to supplement, inform, and interpret the dialogue and soundtrack.

Closed Captions Meaning

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

Closed captions are supplementary text added to video footage that transcribes the dialogue and components of the soundtrack, including background noise and phone ringing, for 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 and closed captions, in case you were wondering if there is.

Closed Caption Definition

If you’re seeking an answer for what closed captioning means, here’s a precise definition of it:

Closed captions are text added to video content that viewers can turn on or off as needed. 

Open Caption Meaning

Open captions are text that is always visible and cannot be turned on or off. 

Video Captioning

Video captions involve understanding the events and activities in the video and describing them efficiently in text as they unfold. That’s how captions for video work and does explain fairly what TV captions mean. 

What Does CC Mean on YouTube?

CC on YouTube stands for closed captioning. Closed captioning or CC on YouTube, therefore, is a text version of the 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 them 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 various 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, and Arabic video content, closed captioning is the reason.

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

What Does CC Mean in Text?

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

Live Captioning: What is Live Captioning?

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

Regardless of how they do it, live captioning helps people who understand the written word better than the spoken word. Additionally, anyone with hearing difficulties can understand the program’s content even in noisy environments.

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 imagine foreign-language films without English subtitles; they’re so prevalent today on streaming platforms like Netflix. Likewise, English-language films are available with German subtitles on Amazon Prime Video. 

However, even the best subtitles sometimes fail to convey foreign-language dialogue accurately. That’s why you need captioners who have true mastery of the source and target languages. 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: viewers who don’t know the language spoken in the video. A subtitler translates dialogue into the viewer’s native language. 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 combine captions and subtitles.

English SDH Meaning

SDH subtitles go a step further to serve viewers who don’t understand the video’s language and are deaf or hard of hearing.

Instead of just English subtitles, you may have English SDH subtitles for Money Heist on Netflix.

Netflix Subtitles

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

In short, Netflix subtitles for foreign languages are imperative for anyone aiming to reach a wider audience by making video content more accessible.

What are CC Subtitles?

So far, we’ve explained what cc subtitles are in detail. Now we’re in a position to explain in a bit more detail what closed-captioning is 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 that the ‘caption ‘ and ‘ subtitle’ are different from each other, not just in definition, but also in purpose. 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 serves viewers with hearing impairments who do not understand the language.

Difference Between Closed Captions and Subtitles

So far, we’ve understood that 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 the fore the imperceptible difference between subtitles and closed captions that they carry within them. While subtitles are the best way to substitute text for dialogue, closed captions sufficiently describe external audio cues that are integral to the narrative, such as phone rings and other background noise.

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

A simple way to decide is to know 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 are the dialogue in text form. That’s what a 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 video’s language but are not very conversant in it, and need on-screen text to make sense of the dialogue. In this case, as well, offer subtitles.

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

Subtitling as Translation

Think of subtitling as just another form of translation.  In it, you take the foreign-language content of a video and translate it into the native language your audience is most comfortable with.

Closed Captioning as Description

What does captioning mean? Closed Captioning is another way of describing situations for hearing-impaired audiences and is helpful when playing audio is nearly impossible or difficult.  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 have in-house professionals with years of expertise in subtitling and captioning, and they use technical jargon such as time-coding, syncing, and encoding. By choosing us, you can leverage our technical expertise to improve the accessibility of your video content for a wide range of audiences. Any font, colour, style, or placement you want for your subtitles, we can provide it that way. 

By outsourcing the project to a subtitling company, you save significant labour and time, which you can put to better 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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