Thread Subject: Re: Subpart A Definitions-Captioning- ActionNeeded

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From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Wed, May 02 2007 12:05 PM

I'll have to disagree with you and state it is a common
misconception that subtitles and captions are the same thing. They
simply are not the same.

Wikipedia's information on closed captioning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_captioning and on subtitles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtitles may be of interest to you. There
is much more information freely available to read on the subject. I
would also like to point out that although we can speak to the functions
of captions and subtitles, there is a lack of _technical standards_
begin discussed. The Open & Closed Project: http://openandclosed.org/ is
working on this issue as are others - but lack of a technical standard
to reference adds to our inability to make content accessible in a
variety of formats.

Regards,


Norman B. Robinson
Section 508 Coordinator
IT Governance, US Postal Service
phone: 202.268.8246




-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Schomburg,
Paul
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 10:56 AM
To: TEITAC Subpart A Subcommittee
Cc: Schomburg, Paul
Subject: Re: [teitac-subparta] Subpart A Definitions-Captioning-
ActionNeeded


Folks: I think it is a common misconception that subtitles and captions
are different, although historically they have been used differently.
In reality, however, both can provide the same kinds of information in a
functionally equivalent manner. For this reason I would like to suggest
the following changes to the definition proposed by Geoff as follows:

Captions are synchronized text equivalents for audio information.
Captions convey the content of spoken dialogue, but also include text
for non-spoken information such as important sound effects, music,
laughter, and speaker identification and location. Captions should not
obscure or obstruct relevant or key information. In some packaged
media, captions may be provided as "subtitles for the deaf and hard of
hearing."

Thanks, Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of geoff
freed
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 2:14 PM
To: 'TEITAC Subpart A Subcommittee'
Subject: Re: [teitac-subparta] Subpart A Definitions-Captioning-
ActionNeeded



>RECOMMENDED LANGUAGE:
>Captioning: Captions are synchronized text equivalents for audio
>information. Captions are similar to subtitles in that they convey the
>content of spoken dialogue, but also include text for non-spoken
>information
>such as important sound effects, music, laughter, and speaker
>identification
>and location. Captions should not obscure or obstruct relevant or key
>information. In some countries captions are called subtitles.


__XX_ I'm recommending that the group consider the following changes:


======
Captioning: Captions are synchronized text equivalents of audio
information. They are in the same language of the audio and convey not
only speech content, but also non-speech information such as sound
effects, music, laughter, and speaker identification and location.
Captions should not obstruct relevant visual information. In some
countries captions are called subtitles.
======


Note that I took out the reference to foreign-language subtitles. While

it's easy to draw similarities between captions and subtitles, they
really are different things.

Geoff/NCAM

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