DVD Subtitling & Captioning Producing quality subtitles and captions for DVD releases requires a skilled blend of transcription, translation, timing and editing skills supported by state-of-the-art technology and superior project management. Subtitling provides a written representation of the audio portion of a program. For video, subtitles are "burned in" and will always appear when the video plays. DVD subtitle files are stored separately from the video and can be turned on or off at the viewer's discretion. In addition to DVD subtitling, we also offer Line 21 captioning for DVD. Captions for DVD are just like those for NTSC video and are viewed the same way: through your TV's closed caption decoder. They must be created in a style that a caption decoder can read: one font, one size, upper/lower cases, up to four lines per caption, any justification. Just like regular captioning, your captions can be roll-up or pop-on style. Hard Encoded Subtitles - Hard Subtitles are encoded directly into the DVD bitstream itself, and are chosen as part of the DVD menu, as opposed to Closed Captions, which require an outboard decoder. There are two kinds of hard-encoded subtitles, Open and Closed, though each are usually just called a "subtitle": Open : The open variety are presented for you whether you like it or not. For example, in AMISTAD, whenever the Africans speak, subtitles appear onscreen and cannot be defeated by turning off the subtitle option in the player. Closed : The closed variety are utilized by most DVD's (and some Laser Discs) exclusively. These must be turned on or off via the DVD menu or remote and are therefore defeatable. * DVD Menu Chosen Subtitles and Closed Captions - With a DVD, and each is different, you can have alternate languages translated into subtitles as well as the native English track. Since the Closed Captions and any foreign language subtitles will both cost money to produce, studios have discovered that the label "Closed Captioning" can be used instead of "Subtitles." Thus, increasingly often, you will find that "English Captions For The Hearing Impaired" is being listed on DVD menus instead of English Subtitles. * Open Closed Captions - These take Closed Captions and make them appear as Subtitles streams instead of encoding them in Line 21 of the video signal. Thus, no decoder box will be needed in order to view these captions. Open Closed Captions will define the sounds as well as the words, though sometimes, especially on foreign films, it is primarily dialogue which is identified. However, since Open Closed Captions are subtitle streams, text will not appear in a black box.