Closed Captions for Web Video - It's the Law

View Sample Web Videos with Closed Captions

Accessibility Act of 2010 Chart of Deadlines

Web Formats that support Closed Captioning

Workflows for Web Closed Captioning

On Friday, January 13, 2012 the FCC released the implementation schedule and standards for web captioning based on the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010.

• For programming that is prerecorded and not edited for Internet distribution, a compliance deadline of six months after the rules are published in the Federal Register;
• For programming that is live or near-live, a compliance deadline of 12 months after the rules are published in the Federal Register; and
• For programming that is prerecorded and edited for Internet distribution, a compliance deadline of 18 months after the rules are published in the Federal Register.

To see the actual FCC web captioning regulations, click below:

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0113/FCC-12-9A1.pdf

See Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) comment on the passing of his bill (on YouTube).

See CPC developer Giovanni Galvez comment at the FCC.

For more information about our software aimed at web closed captioning, see our WebPlus page.

The process to add closed captioning to web files is called e-captioning. Continue reading below to see how CPC's closed captioning software and closed captioning services can help you meet the new web closed captioning regulations.

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WEB FORMATS with Closed Captions

Mobile Devices Closed Captioning

Many mobile devices already support closed captions, although they require the captions in different formats depending on the device. With CPC software it is easy to create captioned videos that work on multiple devices.

The iPhone, iPod, and iPad are very common players for portable video and music media. The Apple devices support TV-style closed captioning in H.264 video files. CPC MacCaption software can encode closed caption tracks into QuickTime videos with any pixel resolution. The closed captions can be extracted from a broadcast tape or file, converted from other caption formats, or even created from scratch. Simply add the captions track to your existing video files with MacCaption.

Most Android-based phones which support Flash can take advantage of Flash closed captions.

YouTube Closed Captioning

It is easier than ever to caption web videos through YouTube. Not only does YouTube have a speech recognition engine to help transcribe your video, but also an automatic time stamping tool to synchronize an already existing script. If you need the transcription to be perfect it is best to type it out manually in a word processor and upload a .txt file alongside your video to YouTube. This will result in accurate captioning text. However, there are times when you may have a closed captioning file or tape that already has captions but needs to converted to a video that can be uploaded to YouTube. CPC software can help by quickly converting your TV closed captioning file or tape to the .SRT format that is native to YouTube.

iTunes Closed Captioning

iTunes software for Mac and Windows now has the ability to display closed captioning for iTunes videos, including video podcasts and iTunes U. All you have to do is add closed captions to a QuickTime .mov or .m4v file. The closed captioning in these iTunes files are called closed caption tracks for QuickTime. MacCaption can create this CC track quickly and easily by embedding them from any caption document or already captioned video into the QuickTime .mov without re-compression or generation loss. Take existing video podcast archives that you are hosting and add CC to them using MacCaption's batch processing.

Flash Closed Captioning

Adobe CS5, Flex, Flow Player, JW Player, Hulu, and Captionate plug-in support closed captioning files for the web. Flash video is like a sea of different custom video players. There are a variety of caption file formats that Flash video can support. They include .srt, DFXP Timed Text .xml, SAMI .smi, Captionate .xml, and embedded .FLV with captions. CPC software can export any of these file formats to support a variety of custom video delivery websites.

QuickTime Closed Captioning

MacCaption provides the best workflow for inserting closed captioning or subtitle tracks into QuickTime files. These work not only in QuickTime Player on your desktop, but also in your web browser or on your Apple mobile devices.

Windows Media Closed Captioning

If you are delivering captioning content to an all-Windows audience then Windows Media closed captioning could be the most compatible option. Windows Media can read the captioning either from a separate SAMI (.smi) file or from an embedded .WMV file with captioning. CPC software can generate either one of these options for Windows Media servers needing to deliver accessible video content.

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WORKFLOWS for Web Closed Captions

Preparing your captioned video for the web

TV broadcast producers now need a way to get their videos that were closed captioned for broadcast onto the web without losing the captions. CPC software can easily handle any situation. It can extract and convert closed captions to any required format. If a frame rate or time code change is needed, it has all the necessary tools to easily adjust the closed caption data. Typically this also involves editing the video to remove commercial breaks or shorten the duration. CPC’s closed captioning software can make use of an edit decision list (EDL) from your editing system to automatically conform the original captions to the new web version.

Consider what your audience is using to view your captioned video

If everyone's computer was the same then you could simply upload your video in one format such as Windows Media and sleep well at night knowing that everyone in the world can watch your video. In reality this is not the case. Some people watch videos on a Mac and some on Windows computers. Some watch videos in mobile phones and iPads. Even the most common web video player using Flash technology requires the user to download and install Flash in order for the video to work. After the new law is passed not only does your video have to be compatible with your viewer's desktop video player, but also the video player must support closed captioning in some form or another. Using the latest technology, CPC can consult with your webmaster to make sure that your internet video content will play with closed captioning for all your online viewers.

Batch Processing of Closed Captioning

Because TV broadcast producers have been closed captioning video for over 20 years, there are large archives of closed caption files and videos in many different formats. Entire video tape libraries exist with old closed captioned programming that needs to be uploaded to the web with the captions intact. CPC software can take entire archives of video and caption files and batch process them for web delivery.

Tape to Web Closed Captioning

Last year Final Cut Pro 7 was introduced by Apple, including a new feature that provides professional video producers an elegant and versatile closed captioning workflow. With Final Cut Pro 7, a Mac user can capture their closed captioned tapes into the QuickTime format without losing the important captioning information. MacCaption software can convert this QuickTime captioning into any other captioning file for the web, including Flash, iTunes, QuickTime, YouTube, and Windows Media.

TV to Web Closed Captioning

There are many devices for watching DTV (on air or cable) broadcasts using your computer. What is critical to viewers who need accessibility is that the closed captioning data can also be viewed and recorded live to a hard drive. Broadcasters who need to post clips to the web now have a simple solution. CPC software can extract the closed captions from the live recording and convert them to any other closed captioning file, including Flash, iTunes, QuickTime, YouTube, and Windows Media.

Video files to Web Closed Captioning

There are many different kinds of video files used in the professional editing and broadcast world. MXF, MPEG-2, DV25, DVCPRO HD, QuickTime ProRes, Line-21 VBI, Avid AAF can all have closed captions in one form or another. CPC software can batch process or manually extract closed captioning from virtually any video file or format, and easily convert it to any web friendly format.

Create Closed Captioning for the Web from Scratch

To caption a video for the web, a few ingredients are needed: a transcript of the video, the actual video file, and closed captioning software to format and synchronize the text with the video. There are many tools that can help this process become quick and easy. CPC’s MacCaption and CaptionMaker software are optimized for professional captioning workflows that require speed and flexibility. Once the captioning project is finished inside CPC software, there are a variety of export options for compatibility with any kind of video.

Let the experts Closed Caption your next web video

CPC makes closed captioning software that lets you do all of your closed captioning in-house, but we also can closed caption your project as a service. If you’re on a strict deadline or just need a helping hand, CPC service is here to handle all your closed captioning needs.