Subtitles vs. Closed Captions
What Is the Difference Between Subtitles and Closed Captions?
Subtitles give the dialogue to viewers who can hear it but don’t understand it, usually as a translation, while closed captions are written for viewers who can’t hear the audio and add who is speaking, sound effects and music. Closed captions sit on a track the viewer switches on, and open captions put the same text into the picture, where nobody can switch it off.
Subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) are subtitles in the language of the audio that name the speakers and sounds, which Netflix’s style guide puts in brackets. The words also change by region: the BBC calls its closed captions subtitles, and W3C notes that some places use subtitles for both.
What Changes When Captions Are Burned Into the Video?
The captions show on every player, but the viewer loses the switch, the styling and the choice of language. Both kinds can meet WCAG, whose captions criterion for prerecorded video lists open and closed captions as sufficient techniques.
Nobody can turn them off
Open captions are part of the picture, so viewers who don’t need them watch them anyway. Closed captions stay hidden until someone turns them on.
Viewers can’t restyle them
On an iPhone, viewers can set the font, size, color and background of closed captions in the accessibility settings, but burned-in text keeps the look it was exported with.
Each language needs its own video
An HTML video can list several subtitle and caption tracks, one per language. In our CE.SDK 1.85 test, two caption tracks both showed in the same frame until we hid one, so every language means a separate export.
Subtitles, Closed Captions or Open Captions: Which Should You Use?
Pick by who is watching and what the player can do. A product launch video, for example, might ship with a Spanish subtitle track and an English caption file for the player on your site, plus an open-captioned cut for places where viewers have no caption controls.
Use subtitles for
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Viewers who don't speak the language
They hear the music and the sound effects, so the translated dialogue is all they need.
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A track for each market
Every language is a separate file, so adding one leaves the video as it is.
Use closed captions for
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Viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing
Speaker names and sound descriptions carry what the audio would, and WCAG asks for captions on prerecorded video with sound.
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Anyone watching with the sound off
Captions also help when the audio is muted or lost in the noise around the viewer.
Use open captions for
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Players with no caption support
Text in the picture shows on any player that can show the video.
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Clips that get downloaded and reposted
A caption file doesn't travel with a downloaded MP4, but text burned into the picture does.
How Subtitles and Closed Captions Work in CE.SDK
Video captions in CE.SDK are available on the web, iOS, Android and the server. Open our video captions demo to see the caption panel in a working editor.
Import a caption file or generate one
When users already have an SRT or VTT file, they import it from the caption panel, or your app passes it in through the engine API. Without a file, the Auto Captions plugin for the web, iOS and Android editors sends the audio to a speech-to-text service you choose, and the web plugin ships with ElevenLabs Scribe V2. On the web, it then opens the captions for review, which machine captions always need.
Style every caption at once
Presets set the font, colors, background and animation. Applying one to a single caption styles all of them, so the whole video reads the same.
Keep a track per language
For subtitles in more than one language, add a caption track for each and hide all but one before each export.
Export the video and publish the file
The exported MP4 has the captions in the picture, so the video carries open captions. For closed captions, publish the SRT or VTT next to it, as CE.SDK’s docs suggest. For captions typed in the editor, your app can write that file from each caption’s text, start and duration.
FAQs
They carry the same content, the dialogue plus who is speaking and what can be heard. SDH comes as a subtitle file in the same language as the dialogue, so Netflix's style guide treats it as intralingual subtitles, and Apple's iPhone settings offer Closed Captions + SDH as one choice.
Yes, they can. WCAG 2.2 accepts open captions on prerecorded video as long as they do what captions are for, naming the speakers and describing meaningful sounds. It also notes that captions shouldn't hide important parts of the picture, which matters more when viewers can't move them or turn them off.
Treat them as a first draft. W3C's guidance says automatic captions don't meet accessibility requirements unless someone confirms they are fully accurate, since missing a single word, such as 'not', can turn a sentence around. YouTube's help also tells creators to review them, because accents, dialects and background noise cause mistakes.
In the UK, subtitles is the everyday word for both. The BBC's guidelines describe closed subtitles, also known as closed captions, and add that most people who use them are not hard of hearing: around 10% of broadcast viewers turn them on regularly, and up to 35% for some online content.
Links
Documentation and references for this concept.
Video Editor SDK
Add captions, alongside trimming and export, to iOS, Android, web and server apps.
Add Captions
Import SRT or VTT files, style captions with presets and export them burned into the video.
Auto Captions
Generate captions from speech with a provider you choose, then review them in the caption panel.
Related Terms
Caption
A timeline-synchronized text overlay in CE.SDK's video editor for adding subtitles or on-screen text, imported from subt…
Text Animation
An effect that moves on-screen text, such as a fade, a slide or a typewriter reveal, applied to the whole block or split…
Lower Thirds
Text graphics over the bottom of a video frame that name the person speaking, the place or the source of the footage, us…