Do you need captioning for your website? Captioning is the term used to describe text that is displayed to correspond with someone’s voice or other sounds. It is often used for online videos and even on television, as well as for a variety of other learning materials. In particular, captions are used to assist those that are hard of hearing. They allow everybody to enjoy the same information and dialogue.
Just like there are many uses for captioning, there are also various styles and types. It is essential you know what they are so you can choose the best one for you.
Types of Captioning
First of all, there are different types of captioning. Thus, the words can be displayed in a different way and under different circumstances. Namely, we are talking about live captioning, open captions, and closed captions.
Live Captioning
Just as the name suggests, live captioning is often used for television, lectures, and for events that are occurring live. For example, the news and soccer games are two instances when a presenter and commentator’s voice will be part of the live captioning. Anybody that is watching will be able to read along with the coverage in real-time.
Closed Captions
The most popular type is closed captioning. This can also be referred to as subtitling and it is noticeable through the use of the [CC] symbol. Closed captions mean that the user has the choice whether they want to display captions with the television or computer video they are watching. If they do, the spoken words will display on the screen. If captions are turned off, they will not be shown. Thanks to captioning software by Verbit, they are easy to create if you are sharing a video with your audience.
Open Captions
With closed captions, you have the choice of whether you want to view them or not. On the other hand, open captions are permanently displayed so that they are seen by everybody. For example, think about when you watch a foreign movie. They have open captions that are displayed in English so that you can understand the movie.
Methods of Captioning
Next, let’s look at methods of captioning. This refers to when they are used and how they can be displayed for an audience.
Offline Captioning
Once a video has been recorded, captions can be added offline. In other words, they are not live and they are added afterward. This is often how television series and movies enjoy captioning.
Online Captioning
Online captioning, often referred to as real-time captions, are those that are displayed when the program begins. They display at the time, such as for sporting events.
Styles of Captioning
When we talk about the style of captioning, we mean how they appear on the screen. In particular, there are three style types to be aware of.
Pop-Up Captions
This type of caption is suddenly going to appear and display around one or two lines of text before it disappears.
Roll-Up Captions
Roll-up captioning is used to display verbatim, rolling up from the bottom of the screen. Normally, this displays three lines of text at a time.
Paint-On Captions
A lot of people get pop-up and paint-on captions confused. Indeed, they are similar. However, paint-on captions will be displayed from left to right gradually as the speech progresses. It is also verbatim.
