Optimising the Accessibility of Your Video Content in Any Language
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Subtitles
Subtitles include only the dialogue in a video and are most commonly used to provide a translation of the speech or to aid comprehension if the audio is distorted. They typically assume that the viewer can hear the audio, and so do not include things like laughter, applause, sound effects or speaker labels, which the viewer will be able to comprehend from the audio, whether or not they understand the language being spoken.

Captions
Captions include all meaningful audio in a video, including music, sound effects, laughter, applause, etc. This is because they assume that the viewer cannot hear the audio at all, either because the video is silent or because the viewer is deaf. Captions also sometimes include speaker labels, which can either appear as text, or by using different coloured captions for each speaker.

Both subtitles and captions can be produced in two forms – open and closed.

Open subtitles/captions
Open subtitles/captions are a permanent part of the video and cannot be deactivated by the viewer. They are sometimes called burnt-in subtitles/caption, since historically, they were chemically burnt into the camera film. They are most often used when only a short section of the full video is being subtitled/captioned, for example if only one speaker uses a different language or part of the audio is distorted.

Closed subtitles/captions
Closed subtitles/captions are encoded as a separate file that is embedded alongside the video and so may be switched on and off by the viewer as they choose. This also allows the viewer to switch between multiple versions of the subtitles, enabling multiple translations to accompany the same video. Some media players also provide additional customisation options, for example adjusting the font size and colour to improve legibility on different displays.

We can also provide live subtitles, which are displayed in near realtime for live broadcasts and events. This works in a very similar way to simultaneous interpreting, but the translation is typed rather than spoken. Live subtitles are also occasionally provided in the original language as an aid to comprehension in large events where some audience members may not be able to hear the speaker.