Libraries and Accessibility

Captioned video

• ensures that deaf or hard of hearing individuals can use the video
• supports different learning styles, especially for people who prefer to read instead of listen
• is useful when it’s not possible or convenient to play the sound

Types of captions

• Closed captions: This is the technique to use because the viewer can turn off the captioning.
• Open captions: Captions appear without the option to remove them.

Guidelines and Best Practices for Captioning Videos

• Captioning Key (Described and Captioned Media Program)
• Create Accessible Captions and Transcripts (Section 508.gov)

How to add captions or subtitles to video recordings post-production
 

Manual Captioning 

In this process, you must manually type the captions for your video.

• Amara: caption and subtitle any video for free. 9
• Cadet: A free, downloadable captioning program from the National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH (NCAM).
• Final Cut Pro - Instructions for manual captions. Software purchase required
• Adobe Premiere - Instructions for manual captions. Software purchase required
• YouTube Studio upload your video to YouTube and use the platform to add subtitles and captions

Automatic Captioning

These resources offer some level of automatic captioning of videos.

• YouTube - Instructions for automatic captions of videos uploaded to YouTube.
• Vimeo - Instructions for Vimeo auto captions.
• Adobe Express - Free Adobe product that automatically generates caption for videos

Captioning Services

In Connecticut, live real-time captioning for telephone calls is available for free through T-Mobile IP Relay or Relay Connecticut. Both offer services for conference calls.  Relay Connecticut can provide captioning for virtual meetings as well. 

Companies that create subtitles/captions/transcripts, with an associated cost.

• 3PlayMedia
• Ai-Media
• Caption First
• Rev 
• Verbit
• Vitac

Type of Transcripts

• Basic Transcript -  From the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, "Basic transcripts are a text version of the speech and non-speech audio information needed to understand the content."
  • Used by people who are deaf, hard of hearing, people who process information better with text information, and others (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative).
• Descriptive Transcript - From the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, "Descriptive transcripts for videos also include visual information needed to understand the content."
  • Used by people who are deaf and blind and people who process information better with text information (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative).

Guidelines for Transcripts

• Does My Media Need a Transcript? (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative)
• Creating Transcripts (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative)
• Where to Put Transcripts (W3C Web Accessibility Initiative)