Tag Archive for: subtitles

Do company training videos have to be captioned?

Many companies use video to provide training to their employees. Topics range from new employee on-boarding to workplace conduct and safety procedures. Video can also be used for continuous training to ensure that employees are up-to-date on the latest policies and procedures as well as product and service related information needed for customer interactions.

Using video for training is a great way to educate employees when a live trainer is not available or needed to cover basic information. To make sure your video content is understood and retained it’s important to make sure the each video includes accurate captions.

Do you legally have to caption training videos?

Yes. According to ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Private companies must caption videos, including training videos, video tutorials, and videos used for internal communications to be in compliance with ADA standards.

Specifically, Title I and Title II of the ADA prohibit employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of a disability. This includes job training and providing any necessary aids to ensure equal access to information for all individuals.

Providing captions for all internal videos is one way to ensure your company is compliant.

Failure to comply with ADA regulations could lead to un-neccesary lawsuits. Take FedEx as an example. FedEx was sued by the EEOC in 2014 for failing to provide “closed-captioned training videos during the mandatory initial tour of the facilities and new-hire orientation for deaf and hard-of-hearing applicants”. (https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-sues-fedex-ground-package-system-inc-nationwide-disability-discrimination)

So how can your business ensure you are following ADA regulations?

To start, make sure any company videos include accurate closed captioning. If you have any videos that do not include captions, we can help!

Fill out the form to get a quote for captioning your video content and send us your files. Using advanced ASR technology, our team will create accurate closed captioning files for your videos with fast turnaround times.

Using our captioning service, we create highly accurate captions for your training and informational videos for $0.25 per minute of content.

To make your company videos even more inclusive, consider adding translated subtitles. Adding Spanish captioning is a great way to ensure that all employees, especially those who speak English as a second language, are able to fully retain company information and training guidelines.

Translated subtitles for your company videos is done using a combination of our ASR technology and professional human translators. This way, we are able to provide you with Spanish video subtitles that are both accurate and affordable, starting an unbeatable price of $1.67 per minute. To learn more about how you can add Spanish subtitles to your training videos, visit our subtitling page.

Guide to adding captions to online courses and eLearning Videos

Now, more than ever, online learning courses are a crucial component of school courses. After the COVID-19 pandemic, learning institutions have been challenged to make their courses and learning materials more accessible online should their students need to stay home instead of coming to the classroom. From university professors to elementary school teachers, everyone is uploading courses and teaching videos to online platforms to make sure that students don’t miss out on their material when they have to stay at home.

All of this material needs to be captioned.

Why?

First, students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing need to be able to access these videos as well. According to the American Disabilities Act (ADA), most higher education institutions, including both public and private, must offer closed captioning. Failure to comply with these regulations could lead to serious penalties for the learning institution.

Second, professors must understand that students in the modern world are not always able to study in perfectly quiet environments. Many students are living at home with their families and are constantly surrounded by noise and distractions. Captions help these students to understand what is being said even if they can’t hear every word perfectly due to noisy surroundings.

Another reason for adding captions to eLearning courses is to help improve student’s comprehension, accuracy, engagement, and retention. A study by educause.edu sought to better understand student’s use of captions when it comes to online learning courses. Amongst the students who said they use closed captioning, “59.1 percent reported that the closed captions in course videos are very or extremely helpful, and an additional 29 percent said they were moderately helpful.” This is after the survey found that over 50% of students without any hearing disabilities use closed captions at least some of the time.

Enhance your student’s learning experience and improve their success rates through the use of closed captioning.

Here’s how to add closed captioning to your online and eLearning courses:

Step 1: Have both your video file and its audio file ready to be uploaded. You can use websites such as vlchelp to help create an audio only file from any video.

Step 2: Purchase and download WinCaps Q4.

WinCaps Q4 is BroadStream’s software solution for closed caption and subtitle creation. WinCaps Q4 takes any video or audio file and creates an accurate closed caption file that provides the text as well as timing for captions. These captions can be easily edited to change any wording, punctuation, or spelling. A separate caption file can also be created to easily translate these files into a foreign language.

If you are an educational institution, ask about our special WinCaps Q4 Educational that provides a special license to last the duration of your course.

Step 3: Export the caption file that can then be uploaded on your learning platform alongside the course video. Students will be able to choose whether or not they want to add these captions to the video, providing them with the best personal learning experience.

If you have any questions, reach out to our team online through our contact page. We’ll be happy to answer any questions about how to best add closed captioning to your online courses.

For more information about WinCaps Q4 and it’s various features, visit our WinCaps page.

To learn about our closed captioning services that start at just $0.25/minute, visit our closed captioning services page.

Captions vs. Subtitles

What’s the difference between captions and subtitles?

Many people confuse captions and subtitles. They both appear as text on a television, computer screen or mobile phone while a video is playing, and help individuals understand the speech better. So what is the actual difference between the two?

The basic difference is captions are in the same language as the spoken word on the screen and subtitles are in a different language.

Captions take the speech and display it as text in the same language. Subtitles, on the other hand, are a translation of the speech into different languages. This means that with captions, what you read is what you also hear. With subtitles, what you read is a different language than what you hear.

Captions were originally developed to make television programs more accessible to the deaf community. Individuals with hearing impairments may not be able to fully understand the audio but can follow along with the closed captions to understand what is being spoken.

Closed captions prevent discrimination against people with disabilities and are required by law in many countries including America and all of Europe. Not only do captions benefit the deaf community, but they also make multimedia videos more engaging and accessible. With captions, videos can be played on silent in public areas or noisy rooms. Captions also help viewers to better retain information from university lectures, training videos, conference meetings, live events, and so much more.

Subtitles, on the other hand, were originally developed to make television viewing more accessible to viewers who don’t speak the same language as the audio in the program. Videos and TV programs can now be shared across the world with the help of subtitles. Although the speech remains in one language, individuals can add their foreign language, if available, using subtitles to better understand what is being said. Subtitles not only make multimedia more accessible across languages, but also help individuals who are trying to learn a new language. Statistics show that adding subtitles in a foreign language can help individuals learn a new language by watching the words and phrases pop-up on the screen. Subtitles also offer benefits for the deaf and hard-of-hearing who seek to access videos in foreign languages as well.

Both subtitles and captions make multimedia videos and television programs accessible across the world. Video content is quickly invading social media platforms and videos are becoming much more important in education and business environments.

Every video you create should have captions or subtitles to improve engagement, accessibility and retention for all viewers regardless of their hearing situation.

Check out our Captioning & Subtitling Software to learn more about what these technologies can do for you.