Techniques for Creating Accessible, Closed Captioned Web-Based Video
California State University - Northridge
21st Annual International Technology and 
Persons with Disabilities Conference

Los Angeles, California
March 22, 2007

http://disability.law.uiowa.edu/lhpdc/publications/kleinpubs.html
Captioning Definitions
•	Closed captions
•	Captions can be turned on/off by user
•	Separate “track” in video
•	Often, outside video area
•	TV and Web different technologies
•	Open captions
•	Captions always present
•	Embedded in video
•	Subtitles
•	In UK, used synonymously for closed or open captioning
•	In U.S. refers to language translation
•	Transcription
•	Text rendering of the audible portion of an event
•	Audio Description
•	Verbal description of the salient visual parts of a video
Process - Transcribing Audio or Video
•	Transcribe
•	Speaker identification
•	Nonverbal elements: [Laughter], [Inaudible]
•	Transcript saved in text format
•	Plain .txt for caption file
•	Use UTF-8 (?)
Process - Precaptioning Steps
•	Text is broken up into “caption-sized chunks” 
•	Based on Captioned Media Program guidelines (but note that these are for TV)
•	Caption timing software (MAGpie , HiCaption, or text editor)
•	Transcribe directly or import prepared text files
•	Attach time codes to text
•	Export
•	Plain text
•	QuickTime SMIL
•	SAMI
•	DFXP
Captioning with MAGpie – Activity Part 1
•	Handout: MAGpie Part 1 - Attach Time Codes

•	Objective: Modify a transcript to become caption text.
Captioning with MAGpie – Activity Part 2
•	Export caption files

•	Objective: Based on the caption text created in the last activity, generate three files that will be used to caption movies in further activities.
Caption File Contents
•	Caption text
•	Time codes for synchronization with video
•	Text formatting
•	Font and font size
•	Carriage returns
•	Bolding, colors, etc.
•	Speakers
•	Language support
Caption File – QuickTime
•	Open your QuickTime caption file (csun2007.en_US.qt.txt)
•	Note use of curly brackets
•	Heading
•	{QTtext}
•	Timescale
•	Font/font size
•	Background and text color
•	Justification
•	Time codes
•	QuickTime Standards HH:MM:SS.DD
•	Caption text
•	And … more is possible (QuickTime Pro required)
Caption File – SAMI
•	Open your SAMI caption file (csun2007.smi) in TextEdit
•	XML
•	Header
•	Style tags
•	Fonts
•	Colors
•	Text alignment
•	Margins
•	Body
•	Time codes (SYNC tags)
•	Speakers
•	Language
•	Captions
Break?
Take 15 minutes