Video Captions and Subtitles

Everything you need to know about video captions and subtitles

This question comes up often.  People are not always sure of the differences between subtitles, captions and searchable captions™. Let’s get clear.

Subtitles, are predominantly used as a way of translating a medium into another language, allowing those that speak another language to consume the content. For instance, English audiences would be unable to follow the plot of a French or Spanish movie, unless subtitles were used.  Subtitles are best-suited for pre-recorded videos, such as movies and TV shows.

Captions, (also called closed captions) are native-language to the medium rather then a translation to another language.  They are more commonly used as a service to help deaf and hard of hearing audiences. They are also more adaptable to live broadcasts, such as news programming, sporting events and television shows broadcast live.

Searchable Captions™, are next-generation captions.  With searchable captions, the captions are time-stamped by the word synced to the video frame.  By time-stamping captions a database is created.   This database is then used for search and SEO purposes.  The result is literally a “searchable caption™“, further expanding your business reach.