Subtitles and closed captions are topics offhandedly ignored by many. Ask any casual internet user about the difference between the two; they might say they’re the same thing or not care about the difference altogether. It’s okay for viewers not to care to a certain extent, yet for content and video creators, the difference can mean maximized resources, regulatory compliance, and increased engagement. That’s why today, I’ll compare subtitles vs closed captions and answer how a reliable captioning and transcription company can help.
- Subtitles focus exclusively on spoken dialogue, while closed captions include additional non-verbal audio cues, catering to viewers with hearing impairments.
- Closed captions enhance accessibility and engagement for audiences unable to hear what is being said. Subtitles bridge language gaps and boost viewer retention on platforms like YouTube.
- Legal regulations like ADA and FCC mandate the use of closed captions while using captions and transcripts improves SEO by making video content searchable.
What Are Subtitles?
Subtitles are a way to display text along with a video to make the dialogue more accessible to viewers. It includes the words spoken and cues for timing and placement.
Subtitles assist audiences in understanding visual content and may help watchers with impaired hearing enjoy the content more. In the continental US alone, 92% of users watch videos without sound, making subtitles essential for any viewing experience.
The most commonly used subtitle formats today are SRT and VTT. These formats provide standards for creating subtitles on different platforms and sharing them on different devices.
What Are Closed Captions?
Like subtitles, closed captions are text placed directly on the video containing all spoken dialogue with speaker labels and descriptions of significant sound effects, music, and non-verbal communication. Closed captions, or CC, synchronize with the audio, usually appearing at the bottom of the screen just as the audio or video element comes in.
While they have a similar purpose to subtitles, closed captions are a more comprehensive and descriptive form of visual-auditory assistance for viewers geared more toward helping audiences with partial or complete hearing issues.
Many online streaming platforms like Netflix offer closed caption and built-in translation on almost all their movie and TV content. Platforms like YouTube allow creators to upload closed captions as Scenarist Closed Caption (SCC) files. (Quick history trivia: Closed captions began in 1973 on PBS broadcasts.)
How Do You Know If You Should Provide Closed Captions vs Subtitles?
Subtitles are intended for viewers who can hear but may not understand the language. Closed captions are meant for audiences who cannot hear, as they include more contextual audio cues beyond dialogue.
Barring certain regulatory requirements (discussed more in-depth later), closed caption vs. subtitle use is often left to a judgment call. However, there are many instances where one is preferable to the other. Here are some use cases and situations where closed captions and subtitles can be used:
When to Provide Closed Captions:
- For accessibility to individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing
- For viewers in noisy environments where audio is difficult to hear
- In settings where sound cannot be played, such as quiet environments
- When complying with legal or platform accessibility requirements
When to Provide Subtitles:
- To accommodate non-native speakers of the language
- When distributing content in multiple languages
- In settings where sound cannot be played, such as quiet environments
How To Get Closed Captions Or Subtitles?
Here are the most common ways to caption or subtitle your videos:
| Method | Description | Use Cases |
| Manual Transcription | Manually typing out the spoken dialogue and sound effects | Best for accuracy and customization, though it takes significantly longer to do |
| Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) | Using software or AI to auto-generate captions from audio | Fast and automatic, though it is susceptible to errors and requires time to fix |
| U.S.-Based Professional Transcription Service* | Hiring professional transcriptionists and captioners with provable experience to create captions/subtitles | High-quality and detailed results, used in professional settings, customization, available, strict security protocols for confidentiality, ability to translate captions into multiple languages, can deal with different accents |
| Built-in Platform Tools | In-built captioning tools on video platforms | Convenient for immediate results within the platform, but are often inaccurate |
*Ditto Transcripts is a 100% U.S.-based human-powered subtitle and closed caption provider offering all the benefits of a professional transcription service.
The difference between automatic and professional human subtitle providers is eminently noticeable, like the difference between a perfectly synched caption line and one that’s delayed for one whole second.
AI transcription and captioning platforms are inaccurate. The best of them only reach 86% accuracy in recordings that a human can easily transcribe to perfection.
So, they might be fast and cheap, yet the time it takes to correct AI’s mistakes will have you wishing you’d paid for professional help in the first place. Besides, human captioning is preferred for critical environments such as legal or educational videos, where errors could lead to misunderstandings.
What are the Benefits of Subtitles and Closed Captions?
Now that we’ve discussed the closed captions vs subtitles, let’s consider their advantages.
Studies have found that captions and subtitles can positively impact viewership numbers by an average of 40%. Any investment toward professional transcription, closed caption, or subtitle providers will likely pay dividends if you play your cards right. Beyond that, quality subtitles and captions offer a lot more, including:
Improves Accessibility
Captioning and subtitling provide valuable benefits, such as enhancing accessibility for deaf people or those who want to watch a video without sound.
Also, captions and subtitles help non-native speakers understand your content, making them more likely to watch your videos. In addition to making your content accessible to hearing-impaired and non-native speakers, native language speakers can benefit from adding captions to videos to better understand different accents. For example, I find the Scottish accent interesting but sometimes challenging to understand.
Increases Engagement
Viewers are likelier to finish Facebook or YouTube videos with subtitles or captions. On average, viewers only watch about 66% of uncaptioned videos to completion. Meanwhile, captioned videos enjoy a 91% viewing completion rate.
Video-sharing platforms like YouTube and Facebook now consider watch time one of the most crucial metrics for ranking and watching videos. Elevated watch times make your content more appealing to the algorithm, increasing your chances of showing up on trending pages.
Additionally, YouTube requires prospective Partners (i.e., video creators with monetized content) to reach 4,000 hours of watch time within the last 12 months. Every minute of watch time helps; subtitles and captions can help you reach your goals.
Legal Compliance
Depending on your location, regulations may require you to include subtitles or captions in all your video content to enhance the user experience for everyone. For example, The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 enforces accessibility standards in certain states. The ADA suggests following the Guidance on Web Accessibility for video creators to meet its requirements.
Guidance on Web Accessibility
The Guidance on Web Accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA), published in April 2024, aims to “ensure that web content and mobile applications (apps) are accessible to people with disabilities.” Requirements include:
- Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be presented in ways that users can perceive. This includes providing text alternatives for non-text content, creating content that can be presented in different ways (e.g., simpler layout) without losing information, and making it easier for users to see and hear content.
- Operable: User interface components and navigation must be operable. This means making all functionality available from a keyboard, giving users enough time to read and use content, and helping users navigate and find content.
- Understandable: Information and the operation of the user interface must be understandable. This involves making text readable and understandable, ensuring web pages appear and operate in predictable ways, and helping users avoid and correct mistakes.
- Robust: Content must be robust enough to be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. This means ensuring compatibility with current and future user tools.
If you are producing web content for use in state or local government facilities, you must provide clear and accurate subtitles and CC.
Federal Communications Commission
However, it’s not only limited to government content. The Federal Communications Commission’s closed captioning rule requires TV broadcasters to comply with the following:
- Accurate: Captions must match the spoken words in the dialogue and convey background noises and other sounds to the fullest extent possible.
- Synchronous: Captions must coincide with their corresponding spoken words and sounds to the greatest extent possible and must be displayed on the screen at a speed that can be read by viewers.
- Complete: Captions must run from the beginning to the end of the program to the fullest extent possible.
- Properly placed: Captions should not block other important visual content on the screen, overlap one another or run off the edge of the video screen.
So, closed captions and subtitles are not suggestions—they’re requirements for certain content creators.
Repurposing Content With The Help of Transcripts
You, or your provider, can turn captions and subtitles into transcripts. Repurposing these transcripts allows you to use resources you’ve already invested a lot of time and effort into. Ditto can convert our existing content into a new medium to reach new audience members, convert new leads, or even turn one-time active income content into passive income.
Some people, for example, won’t want to pay $500 for a webinar, though they would happily pay $100 for an online course that covers the same information via transcripts. You can sell this course repeatedly with little marketing, and it will continue generating income without extra work.
Another example is turning your videos into blog posts. The principle is the same: edit your transcripts, introduce visual elements, format according to preferences, and tune your video SEO keyword strategy. You have another potential source of income on your hands! In addition, you can use them for training purposes, e-learning modules, or even creating searchable databases.
Whether you’re using the repurposed video content to generate leads, create branching businesses, or sell it directly for immediate profit, transcription is key to scaling your business and maximizing profitability.
Boosts Ranking And SEO
Companies uploading video content without taking advantage of transcription services are not maximizing their potential reach. Google utilizes crawlers to search text content and pick up keywords within the text to help guide their search results.
Google ranks these pages through algorithms and signals like EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). Relevant search engine result pages (SERP) feature those that rank high in EEAT.
The key point in that explanation is text content. Currently, crawlers only read text, not audio or video content. Adding transcripts makes your content searchable and allows you to increase and diversify your keywords without keyword stuffing. It will enable search engines to crawl through your videos for indexing. This, in turn, gives them a better chance of ranking in search results. This, in turn, makes your content more visible through SERPs, allowing you to reach a wider audience base.
Subtitles vs Closed Captions? Don’t Sweat It With Ditto
Ditto Transcripts provides the best closed captioning and subtitling services money can buy. Our service includes a 99% accuracy guarantee, affordable pricing, 100% U.S.-based human transcription experts, top-notch security, fast turnaround times, and more. Call us now to experience the Ditto difference.
Ditto Transcripts is a Denver, Colorado-based transcription services company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcripts for individuals and companies of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote, and ask about our free five-day trial
