• DVD Authoring

  A question about subtitles vs. captioning

  Posted by Adam Fischer on March 27, 2007 at 2:53 pm

  I have a client who always needs captioned versions of their projects. In the past we have usually provided a DVD with a regular version of the video and an open captioned verson. Back in the VHS days we would give them two tapes. They wanted open captioning because they didn’t want to run into any issues of a TV that couldn’t display the closed captioning.

  I brought up the idea of using DVD subtitles rather than captioning which would mean we could have just one video on the DVD and they could turn them on and off as needed. One concern they brought up was if there would be any issues with some DVD players NOT being able to display subtitles. I figured that the technology was pretty common and that this wouldn’t be an issue, but I don’t really know.

  Are there any issues with compatibility and display of subtitles on different kinds of DVD players? Are there any other issues we might run in to?

  Thanks for your time

  Bouke Vahl replied 19 years, 3 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Bill Stephan

  March 27, 2007 at 3:44 pm

  The ability to display subtitles is required by the DVD spec. Any player that had the DVD logo “should” work coorectly to display subtitles. On the other hand, playing a DVD using a software player on PC or Mac may introduce issues.

  Bill Stephan
  Senior Editor/DVD Author
  USA Studios
  New York City
• 

  Bouke Vahl

  April 3, 2007 at 11:09 am

  Beside Bill’s points, if you have room to spare you could always put open captions on a second stream.
  Quality of the subtitles will improve massivly then.

  Bouke

  http://www.videoToolShed.com
  smart tools for video pro’s

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