Captions

Staff Time
Acquiring the equipment to perform captioning of video is prohibitive for most organizations, therefore, this service is best performed by a video production or captioning company. No special equipment will be required if contracting is chosen.

Equipment
Typically, captioning is a service that will be performed by a contractor; therefore, no special equipment will be required by the grantee.

Costs
Captioning can be done as a part of originally producing a video or it can be done after a video has been produced. It is preferable -- for many reasons including cost -- that the planning process include captioning, On average, it costs approximately $600 per 30 minutes of video to encode captions.

Effort
The production of captioned material requires staff to review video material and determine the desired text for captioning. Many captioning services will also perform this service. It is often useful, however, for you to determine what you think is needed in captioning and then discuss any differences with your captioning service.

Resources
A variety of resources exist to assist you in captioning material. You should consult with local video companies about the service and their rates. In addition, you may wish to contact one or more of these resources to determine rates and "turn around" times:

• Caption America
  312 Boulevard of the Allies, Suite 200
  Pittsburgh, PA 15222
  (412) 261-1458 (Voice and Text Telephone)
• The Caption Center at WGBH
  Consumer Affairs Department
  125 Western Avenue
  Boston, MA 02134
  (617) 492-9225 (Voice and Text Telephone)
• Caption, Inc.
  2619 Hyperion, Suite A
  Los Angeles, CA 90027
  (213) 665-4860 (Voice and Text Telephone)
• Real-time Captions, Inc.
  7101 Sepulveda Boulevard, Room 301
  Van Nuys, CA 91405
  (818) 376-0406 (Voice)
• TRC Caption Center
  4900 North Lamar Boulevard
  Austin, TX 78751
  (512) 483-4373 (Voice and Text Telephone)
• National Captioning Institute
  5203 Leesburg Pike
  Falls Church, VA 22041
  (703) 998-2406 (Voice and Text Telephone)
• Rapidtext
  Voice: (714) 644-6500
  TDD: (714) 644-5131
  FAX: (714) 644-5706
  

Helpful Hints About Working With the Captioning Contractor

1. Determine whether your contractor intends to use opened or closed captioning. Opened captioning is visible to everyone while closed captioning usually requires special viewing equipment to be seen. Although, new televisions are being equipped with built-in closed captioning decoders, opened captioning is preferable because it can be viewed by the broadest range of equipment today.
2. Determine how sufficient contrast between the background video and the text will be assured. Ask to see examples.
3. Determine what size of lettering will be used. Make sure it is easy to read.
4. Determine what rate of pacing for the text will be provided. Generally, 60 words per minute for children and 150 words per minute for adults is used.
5. In producing captioning text for your contractor, remember to start a new line with each change of speaker, in some cases it may be important to identify the speaker. In this case, start the dialogue with the name of the speaker.
6. Your finished captioning should avoid the use of symbols. Be sure to check the spelling of all words.

 

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