If you’re the kind of person that likes to watch series and movies with subtitles, then you’re doing some form of closed captioning, and you’re not alone.
The UK’s Office of Communications in 2020 released a report called “Television access services: Review of the Code and guidance” It stated that about 18% of the total population regularly uses closed captioning. However, just around 20% of them were found to have a hearing problem.
According to Salon, home captioning has existed for roughly fifty years now, and Julia Child’s ‘The French Woman’ was the first show that used this in the early 70s. A while back, only non-hearing audiences accepted this service.
Closed Captioning Technology
Initially, closed captioning tech was built into your TV screen, and in the past decade or so, there has been a lot more fine-tuning that has taken place. The information site we mentioned earlier stated that it didn’t take long for more advanced captioning applications to pop up.
Dr. Richard Purcell, a United Kingdom doctor and a Caption Ed founder, said that he sees his business as a service provider for both people who just want to enhance their media interactions and those with hearing problems and need it.
Subtitles vs. Closed Captioning
Matinee Multilingual believes there’s a difference between subtitles and closed captions (CC). Even though they look a lot alike, they’re designed for two different purposes. Subtitles are like text subs for the video’s dialogue; the narrators and characters’ spoken words. On the other hand, closed captions don’t just supplement the video’s dialogue but also do that for other parts of the video’s soundtrack. It also describes phone rings, background noises, etc.
In simpler terms, subtitles assume that viewers can hear the sound, although they require the dialogue displayed in text format.
