Captions and subtitles for video

We provide quality closed captions (also referred to as English to English subtitles in some markets) for any piece of video.

Captioning is the representation of a text version of spoken words and sounds typically available on television, online, as well as within education settings. Captions can be displayed in a variety of ways. In the case of broadcast captions, these are normally displayed at the bottom of the video and can be positioned and coloured to indicate which characters are speaking.

Captions are not only a fundamental tool in providing accessibility to those who are Deaf or hard of hearing, they also have many benefits for all, especially those who speak English as an Additional Language (EAL), have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or learning difficulties.

Captions assist in improving comprehension skills in both listening and reading, recognition of words and vocabulary acquisition, as well as providing an additional method of communicating content.

Captions can be open or closed. Closed captioning (called subtitling in the UK) is the most widely used type of captioning. It gives viewers the option to view captions that are carried with the broadcast signal and the viewer is required to switch the captions on or off. This is done by “opening” the closed captions at the point of viewing. Our captions can be seen across dozens of television channels on both free-to-air and subscription TV. As well as authoring our own original captions, we retime and reformat thousands of hours of captions acquired from our international suppliers to reduce costs for our clients and increase the amount of accessible content. Media that has closed captioning available is commonly identified in program guides and on DVD/video covers by the closed captioning [CC] symbol.

Sometimes it’s important for everyone to receive the message. Open captions are on display for everyone to see and are a permanent fixture on a video. It is also known as ‘burned in’ or ‘hardcoded’ captioning. We deliver open captions in a variety of fonts and styles – great for public places or events – and even YouTube channels. Subtitled foreign films are an example of open captioning.

Live Captioning

Live captioning is the conversion of speech to text in real-time.

At Ai, we deliver thousands of hours of live captioning each month for television, schools, universities, phone conferences and events.

We use two methods to create live captions – stenocaptioning and respeaking.

Stenocaptioners are skilled operators who use a specialist keyboard to create captions by typing chords with a phonetic keyboard.

Respeaking relies on speech recognition software to deliver live captions and requires an operator to listen to an audio feed and respeak those words into the speech recognition software that is specifically trained to their voice. Despite the promises of automatic speech recognition, software-only solutions are a long way from being able to be deployed for live captioning without the need for a respeaker.

Once captions have been created, these words needs to be streamed to our end-users and for this reason we developed our own purpose-built live captioning platform called Ai-Live, which delivers live captions over the internet to any web-enabled device.

With live captioning there is always a delay of around 3-5 seconds between the spoken words and the captions appearing on screen.

We currently offer two types of captions:

1. Full Text captions that aim to capture all the meaningful words that are spoken; and
2. Simple Text captions that deliver a single idea in a single sentence. To deliver these, our captioners remove metaphorical and figurative language, as well as breaking down complex instructions into a single step in a single sentence. Simple Text is especially useful for students with autism (or ASD) who have audio processing issues. It can reduce the anxiety caused by trying to process too much information. Students for whom English is an additional language (EAL) also benefit from simplified captions to support access to lesson content.

Transcription

We’ll accurately transcribe your audio and email it to you as fast as you need it. We use real people, not software, meaning you get an accurate representation of your audio or video recording. We offer transcription services for meetings, interviews, notes, lectures, video footage, and anything that can be recorded.

We offer two types of transcription, verbatim transcripts (or word-accurate transcripts) and content-accurate transcripts. Content-accurate transcripts are created using the same captioning method we use for live broadcast content to an accuracy rating of 98%. We don’t capture every word, but we capture everything that matters. The result is you end up with a transcript that’s shorter whilst still retaining the accuracy of the content. This method is often faster and cheaper.

If you’re interested in a transcription quote, get in touch with us now. We charge per minute with volume discounts available. All our work is 100% guaranteed which means we won’t stop until you’re happy.