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The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
The Video
Distribution Guide
to Captions
DVD
DVD
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The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
Table of Contents
01 Why Video Distributors Need Captions
What Are Captions?
Why are captions necessary?
What captioning requirements are there?
What are captioning best-practices?
What are audience expectations for captions?
02 How to Get Captions For Your Videos
What type of captions are there?
Caption File Formats
Ordering Captions From Rev
03 Which Captions You Need For Distribution
Online Video & Social Media
Video-on-Demand & Streaming Services
Broadcast Television & Media
Disc Authoring Software
Video Editing Software
Customizing Caption Styles
04 What Videos To Distribute With Captions
Recommended Use Cases For Captions
Why Use Rev For Speech-to-Text Services
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Chapter 01
Why Video Distributors
Need Captions
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The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
Your distribution strategy is aimed at delivering the best
possible experience for viewers to consume your content.
This strategy might include teaser videos, movie trailers,
behind the scenes clips, interviews with the talent and
crew, as well as fun videos to post on social media.
It’s clear—you’ve got the content and creative covered.
You might, however, not be thinking about how the content
will be watched and enjoyed by all audiences. Many viewers
might watch on mute or low volume and others might have a
hearing impairment. That’s why you need to make captions
and subtitles a standard part of your distribution strategy.
Captions increase the value of your content. Audiences who
need them, appreciate them. It shows you’ve considered
all the viewers in your distribution strategy. It also gives
value to your production as a whole.
What Are Captions?
Captions display a program’s audio content as text on-
screen. They help viewers understand auditory information
like spoken words, sounds, and music.
Including captions will not only serve those who are deaf
and hard-of-hearing but also help the 80% of viewers who
watch video content on silent on their mobile devices.
Are captions actually needed?
When your content has captions available, it is accessible
by those who wouldn’t normally be able to hear what’s
going on or what’s being said.
Closed-captions are a necessary deliverable to publish on
streaming services, author your master discs, submit shows
to television networks, as well as submit for theatrical release.
Video producers and
distributors need
captions to help viewers
with accessibility
needs and to reach
the growing audiences
who watch videos on
mute.
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The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
Not only is captioning a best-practice, but it’s
even required by law for most major distributors.
What Are the Captioning Requirements?
There are countless accessibility reasons to
include captions with your content—and many
instances where the law requires it.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990
requires that any media presentation played in a
public place have captions. These requirements
have found their way into streaming services like
Netflix and Hulu, where closed-captions are now
included for all their video content.
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 contains
Amendment 508 which governs how electronic
media must be captioned, especially in education.
The 21st Century Communications and Video
Accessibility Act (CVAA) was passed in 2010
which states that anything that has ever been
broadcast on television must be closed-captioned
by law. The act includes rolling deadlines to
allow content managers to catch up on their
backlogged content.
Video producers have 45 days after posting
content to add captions. However, if your content
has never aired on television, then this law doesn’t
apply. Still, many individual vloggers, social
media personalities, and major media companies
choose to follow these rules anyway out of simple
respect for members of their audience.
What Are Captioning Best Practices?
Plain and simple, you need to include captions
for all of your audio and video content. Whether
you plan to air it on television, stream it on Netflix,
or upload it to YouTube, it’s in your audience’s
best interest to have captions available for them.
The best distribution strategy for pre-recorded
content is to have accurate captions ready to go
for all your distribution channels.
What are the audience expectations?
Your audience (and not just those who are deaf
and hard-of-hearing) expects closed-captions to
be available and accurate for all video content.
This means they’re not only expecting the option
to turn on captions but also that they won’t be
auto-generated and full of errors.
This means you can’t rely on auto-generated
captions in your distribution strategy. You need
professional, accurate, and well-formatted captions
for everything you publish.
Great captions will not only guarantee your content
meets accessibility needs but in turn, will add value
to your content and your production as a whole with
audience confidence and appreciation.
Pro Tip
Don’t rely on auto-generated captions from
online video platforms. They’re not accurate
enough to meet accessibility standards for
your audience and editing them can take a
long time. Get professional transcriptionists
for your caption services. Your audience will
appreciate your stellar content accompanied
by high-quality captions.
Every one of my movies needs
closed captions to be put up on
every streaming platform. And
without closed captions, the
movie loses a lot of revenue.”
— Video Distributor
Chapter 02
How To Get Captions
For Your Videos
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The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
Before you order captions, it’s important to
understand what kind of captions you need and
in what formats you will need them for dierent
distribution channels.
What Types of Captions Are There?
There are two main forms of captions—those
you can turn on/o and those that are always on.
Closed-captions are the type of captions that
can be enabled or disabled when viewing the
content on a media device.
Open captions are subtitles that are permanently
burned-in on the video channel of the media.
Viewers cannot turn o these captions.
Foreign subtitles are popular uses for open
captions to ensure that when a foreign language
is spoken on-screen, the translated captions
always appear on-screen.
Caption File Formats
No matter how you want to display them, you can
get caption files in many dierent formats that
are used for various media distribution channels.
These formats include:
• SubRip (.srt)
• Scenarist (.scc) 29.97 fps
• MacCaption (.mcc)
• Timed Text (.ttml)
• Quicktime Timed Text (.qt.txt)
• Transcript (.txt)
• WebVTT (.vtt)
• DFXP (.dfxp)
• Cheetah .CAP (.cap)
• Spruce Subtitle File (.stl)
• Avid DS Subtitle File (.txt)
• Avid DVD Subtitle File (.txt)
• Facebook ready SubRip (.srt)
• Scenarist 23.98 fps (.23p.scc)
• XML (.xml)
SubRip (.srt) is a common caption format used for
online video platforms and social media sites.
Scenarist (.scc) is the standard for CEA-708
broadcasting, streaming services, video-on-
demand platforms, as well as when authoring
master discs for distribution.
Likely, you’ll be using several of the caption file
formats listed for all the places you publish your
content. It’s important to use a caption provider like
Rev as a one-stop-shop to download your captions
in all the formats you need, at no extra charge.
Ordering Captions From Rev
When your video content is getting ready for
distribution, it’s best to have captions ready to
publish sooner than later.
To get started, go to Rev.com and select our
captioning service.
Upload your video, film, television show, or audio
file from your computer, cloud drive, or online
video hosting platforms like YouTube or Vimeo.
Once your caption order is complete, you can
view, edit, and download your captions in Rev’s
caption editor.
Pro Tip
Rev has a free captions converter for any
captions files you have that need to be
converted to a dierent format.
The media channels you publish to will determine
what caption formats you need. Let’s take a look
at the standard caption formats for each platform
or service in the next chapter.
The online caption editor works really
well. Rev is a really good service.”
— Entertainment Distributor
Chapter 03
Which Captions You
Need For Distribution
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The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
You might be distributing various forms of video
content to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram,
Netflix, and the iTunes movie store. You’ll need
to be aware of the dierent caption formats and
platform requirements for each channel.
Online Video & Social Media
The go-to caption format for online video is
SubRip (.srt) for its simplicity and easy-to-edit
text capabilities. If you want to customize the
design or adjust the placement of your captions,
you will need to use another format like Scenarist
(.scc) to accomplish this.
YouTube & Vimeo
• SubRip (.srt)
• WebVTT (.vtt)
• DFXP/TTML (.dxfp)
• Scenarist (.scc)
• SAMI (.sami)
Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter
• SubRip / Facebook ready SubRip (.srt)
Video-on-Demand and Streaming
For broadcast distribution networks, the Scenarist
(.scc) caption file format is the industry standard.
However, you do have some other options
for streaming services and video-on-demand
platforms.
iTunes
• Scenarist (.scc)
• DFXP Full/TTML (.dfxp)
• iTunes Timed Text (.iTT)
Amazon Video Direct
• Scenarist (.scc)
• SMPTE-TT (.xml)
• EBU-TT (.xml)
• DFXP Full/TTML (.dfxp)
• iTunes Timed Text (.iTT)
Netflix & Hulu
• Scenarist (.scc)
• Timed Text (.ttml)
• DXFP (.dxfp)
• XML (.xml)
For online and social media videos, you’ll want
to have your closed-captions sidecar file ready
when you upload your video content.
Be sure that you choose the option to upload
your own captions file and decline or delete
any auto-generated captions that may have
populated.
Workflow: Online Videos
Pro Tip
Use Rev’s integration with YouTube and
Vimeo to sync your captions directly with
your videos.
Before you send your media and captions to a
major distributor, test your captions in a media
player like Quicktime to review the captions for
timing and quality control.
Workflow: VOD/Streaming
• SubRip (.srt)
• WebVTT (.vtt)
• DFXP/TTML (.dxfp)
• Scenarist (.scc)
• SAMI (.sami)
Pro Tip
When you order captions from Rev, you can
download captions in any formats listed in
this guide at any time for no extra charge.
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The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
To learn how to open your videos with captions
in a media player, check out the how-to below:
Disc Authoring Software
If you’re authoring DVD or Blu-Ray discs, you’re
likely using software like Adobe Encore, DVD Studio
Pro, DVD Creator by Wondershare, MacCaption
(Mac), or CaptionMaker (Windows).
The standard caption file for these software
applications is the Scenarist Closed Caption (.scc)
format.
• Scenarist (.scc)
You can easily open your sidecar captions
file with your video file in a media player
like Quicktime or VLC Media Player on your
computer.
1.
Name both video and caption files in the
exact same way (but don’t change the file
extensions).
your-video-title.mp4 (media file)
your-video-title.en_US.srt (captions)
2.
Place the video and caption file in the same
folder.
3. Open the video file in your media player.
4. Enable captions from the subtitle menu in
your media player.
HOW TO OPEN CAPTION
SIDECAR FILES
Broadcast Media & Television
Ever since the transition to digital television in
2009, CEA-708 captions have become the new
broadcast standard, replacing analog CEA-608
(line-21) captions. CEA-708 captions oer more
customization for sizing and position and can
be used with any language.
To get CEA-708 compatible files, download
the Scenarist (.scc) format from your caption
provider.
• Scenarist (.scc)
When making a master disc to make copies for
distribution, you’ll need to use special authoring
software, as many disc burning programs do not
oer captioning capability.
We recommend using a program like Adobe
DVD Encore or DVD Studio Pro to encode the
captions with your DVD or Blu-Ray disc.
Once your disc is compiled and burned, check
the captioning data compatibility on a set-top
DVD/Blu-Ray player and a computer with a disc
player.
DISC AUTHORING TIPS
Video Editing Software
If you need to create burn-in captions or
subtitles, you have to import captions into your
video editing software. Pay close attention to
the compatible formats for each application.
Pro Tip
Video editing software is one of the easiest
ways to edit the style and placement of your
captions to update your captions sidecar
file before submitting to a distributor, or
before you burn them in permanently as
open captions.
We make DVDs and Blu-rays, have
an online digital platform and we’re
also on streaming platforms.”
— Movie Distributor
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The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
Adobe Premiere Pro
• Scenarist (.scc)
• MacCaption (.mcc)
• XML (.xml) / TTML (.ttml)
• Spruce Subtitle File (.STL)
Final Cut Pro
• CEA-608 (.scc)
• ITT (iTunes Timed Text)
Avid Media Composer
• Spruce Subtitle File (.STL)
• Avid DS Caption (.TXT)
Working with captions in your video-editing
software can serve many captioning uses
before submitting for distribution such as burn-
in captions or editing the look and placement
of your captions. Here’s the basic workflow of
captions in most video editing software:
1.
Import the caption files into your project
window.
2.
Sync and align the caption block in your
project timeline.
3. Edit the style, placement, size, and color of
your captions.
4. Export your captions in one of three ways:
• Burn-in captions and subtitles (always on)
•
Encode into output file (embed in media file)
•
Export new sidecar captions file (replace
original)
EDITING SOFTWARE
Customize Caption Style
With video editing software like Adobe Premiere
Pro or Final Cut Pro, you can import and edit your
captions before re-exporting for distribution.
Why might you want to edit captions in an editing
program? You can edit the following:
Pro Tip
You can learn more about editing your
captions in video editing software like
Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, or AVID
Media Composer on Rev’s blog.
While stylistic choices like font, size, and color
might be to your taste, it’s important to think
critically about the other caption attributes.
Position and placement are important to consider
if the original caption blocks text on-screen or
covers up an important visual. It’s also popular
to place captions to the right or left of someone
speaking on-screen, especially in between two
people having a conversation to help signify who
is speaking.
Each frame of captions should contain 1 to 3 lines
and should contain no more than 32 characters
per line.
Duration is key for viewers who are deaf and hard-
of-hearing to know when dialogue, sounds, and
music start and stop. There is a 1-second duration
minimum for captions. You should not include
[SOUND] or [MUSIC] captions up for longer than
5 seconds.
Font Size Color
Position
Duration
Placement Line
A
AA
Chapter 04
What Videos To Distribute
With Captions
13
The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
While captioning seem like a complicated process, Rev
makes it easy to make captions and subtitles a strong part
of your distribution strategy.
Caption Use Cases For Distribution
We recommend that you use captions for any of the
following use cases that go beyond your initial project:
• Movie trailers
• Online advertisements
• Social media clips
• Promotional cuts for marketing
• Theatrical release
• Film festivals
• Broadcast Television
• TV Commercials
• Streaming Services Ads
• Behind-the-scenes videos
• Any video content at all!
Captions should be made for any video content you
produce and publish. You might also consider other speech-
to-text services like subtitles and transcription as part of
your distribution strategy.
• Subtitle your videos to reach broader audiences
• Transcribe your videos for SEO and accessibility
Why Use Rev For Speech-to-Text Services
Captions should be made for any video content you
produce and publish. It’s not only a best practice (and
sometimes legal requirement), but helps those who need
it the most.
You should also consider utilizing more of Rev’s speech-
to-text services like subtitles and transcription as part of
your distribution strategy to reach global audiences, boost
SEO, and open up new ways to repurpose your content
for marketing, advertising, and even educational puposes.
Rev does the
captioning. Then
we get the .scc
caption file along
with the .mxf video
file uploaded to the
television network.”
— TV Distributor
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The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
About this Guide
The Video Distribution Guide to Captions
Written by:
Austin Canary
Content Marketing Specialist, Rev.com
Designed by:
Amanda Piñero
Art Director, Rev.com
Andrés Mojica
Visual Designer, Rev.com
Special thanks to:
Nick Gaudio
Brand and Communications Manager, Rev.com
Sam Deese
B2B Product Marketing Manager, Rev.com
Danny Lambert
Manager, Demand and Marketing Operations, Rev.com
About Rev.com
Rev is the world’s leading speech-to-text technology
platform, providing transcripts, captions, and
subtitles to more than 170,000 customers every
month. With accuracy and speed, Rev’s 50,000
freelancers empower filmmakers, educators,
producers, market researchers, journalists and
creators to make and distribute their projects as
text to help viewers, customers, employees, and
clients to consume content in a more searchable,
accessible format.
San Francisco Oce
222 Kearny St, 8th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108
More Resources
To learn more about Rev, visit
our video production page at
rev.com/video-production
