Captions And Subtitles: What They Are And Why You Need Them

Captions and subtitles are an essential addition to your post-production budget when you’re marketing to schools in the United States or if you are producing for a government agency.

Most schools and government agencies are required by the Americans With Disabilities Act to provide closed captions (this includes web videos) with every video. If you market to schools or government agencies, not having closed captioning may keep them from purchasing, no matter how much they want your video. We have seen this trend increasing.

Closed captions (CC) – also called subtitles for the hearing impaired – are the text of the audio placed into a hidden area of the video – line 21 of standard definition video. A decoding device is required to open these captions for viewing. All televisions, 13 inches or larger, built after 1993 are required to have a built-in decoder.

They allow people who are deaf or hard of hearing, learning a new language, beginning to read, in a noisy environment, or otherwise disadvantaged to read a transcript or dialog of the audio portion of a video, film, or other presentation. As the video plays, text captions are displayed that transcribe (although not always verbatim) speech and often other relevant sounds. Source: Aberdeen Captioning.

Although you can purchase software to do closed captioning in your editing process, there are services that are well worth the investment in future sales revenue. The company we have used is Aberdeen Captioning. Aberdeen also provides subtitling as well. While we were at the NAB Show 2012, we had a chance to get their sales engineer, Steve Holmes, in front of the camera explaining why you want to include captions and subtitles and why working with a service such as Aberdeen’s is the way to go. What’s even more exciting is that Aberdeen has grown from being just a captioning house… Steve shares in this 10 minute video exciting services they now offer to assist you in offering more value added options to your videos and how they are now set up to deal with your distribution challenges.

(If you can’t view the video here, go to our YouTube channel to view.)

When we produced Hooked On Succulents and Crazy About Cacti, we used both their closed captioning and subtitling services. It cost us $250 each for a 25 minute video. Since those videos sell to the school market at $125 retail, $74 wholesale, we made up those costs very quickly. We also repurposed these to sell as retail at a lower price point, Success With Succulents and Captivating Cacti and having those with captioning also is a appealing benefit.

NAB Show 2012 Review – Some Video Trends Revealed

The NAB Show 2012 brought over 90,000 people from all over the globe to Las Vegas last week, as NAB president and CEO Gordon Smith stated in his keynote address, “celebrating technology, connectivity and the remarkable media marketplace on display.”

Over the next few months, we’ll share with you what we discovered in our forays around the exhibit floor.

Here are just a couple of trends we saw last week:

1) There is a huge content shift to streaming and mobile delivery, as Gordon Smith says, “to viewers on the go.”

Broadcasting is evolving onto new platforms – onto tablets, laptops, game consoles and mobile devices. Cable viewership is down, online video is getting hotter and hotter and the tools are evolving to meet this change.

For example, JVC introduced a professional camera, the JVC GY-HM600 ProHD, that records multiple streams – one for broadcast and one for web delivery.

The new GoPro HD Hero2 will be compatible with the optional Wi-Fi BacPac™ and Wi-Fi Remote™, which will allow you to control up to 50 cameras with the remote and stream videos and photos to the web. When paired with the Wi-Fi BacPac, the HD HERO2 also supports live preview, viewable from your smartphone or tablet via the GoPro App. Think about that. You can have multiple cameras on a set or along a route, control them remotely and stream the image to your cell phone. This is a game changer, especially for extreme sports and action videos.

In a few months Livestream will be introducing a box the size of a cell phone that will stream your video to the web. The retail price is $499.  The days of complicated equipment to live stream an event are over. Everything is about streaming to the web and delivering to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Folks, the world has changed.

2) DSLRs are still hot and the tools and technologies to shoot quality programming with them has exploded. More people are doing high end stuff on low budgets. There were more vendors than ever producing clever accessories for shooting high end video and movies with digital SLRs.

3) At the same time, we saw more people shooting video with their iPads and iPhones, and gear to help them do that professionally has grown.

4) We’ve been singing the praises of teleprompters for a couple of years and apparently, we weren’t off base. There were more vendors selling teleprompters at more competitive prices. What is exciting is the number of teleprompters that work with iPads and even iPhones so that you can have a lightweight, portable teleprompter anywhere without the need for AC power.

On another note, we saw several vendors selling remote control helicopters to shoot aerial footage with small cameras like GoPros, DSLRs and even the mighty RED camera. This allows you to get amazing aerial footage and just looks like a ton of fun. They aren’t cheap, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting one.

So you see there are many changes and exciting new products to tell you about. Stay tuned.

NAB Show 2012: My Bags Are Packed – I’m Ready For The Show

Kim and I are enjoying a few free days since shipping off the manuscript for our book, Shoot To Sell: Make Money Producing Special Interest Videos. Now I have to turn my attention to the companion website. This has turned into quite a big project and we are looking forward to being able to share it with you.

In the meantime we’re getting ready for our trip to Las Vegas next week for NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters conference and expo. We’re going to learn about and report on new equipment, software and developments that will be of interest to you. I have a strong sense that this is going to be an exceptional year for new product announcements. Our peer reviewer for our book was Larry Jordan of  LarryJordan.biz and he is definitely on the inside track regarding new products. He says there are going to be a lot of important announcements, so as Paul Harvey always said, “Stand by for NEWS!” He’ll be reporting live throughout the show with Digital Production Buzz. We’ll get a few reports off to you during the week, too.

I’m planning to travel light. We’re flying on Allegiant Airlines and they have tiny little overhead bins that are next to useless. I’ve already checked one bag so I’m going to make all my video gear fit into my KATA DR 467 backpack, with room to spare. I’m taking my lightweight but fantastic Canon HF M41 camcorder, Sennheiser EW100 g2 wireless set, a handheld mic, lavalier mic, very lightweight monopod and an XLR audio cable. You can see my review of that bag here. It’s a great camera backpack. Oh, and I’ll also take my Canon EOS 550D. I hope I come back with more gear than I go out with; that’s always a temptation at NAB.

If you have never been to NAB and you have a chance to go, take it! It is the Super Bowl of video. Hands down, the World Cup of video production. I’m really looking forward to it. Besides, Las Vegas at this time of year is just right; not to hot yet, a little cool at night, just right.

If you’re going to be there give us a shout – we’d like to meet you in person.

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