Subtitles Vs. Captions: Why Both Are Essential?

Do you add subtitles and captions to your videos? Indeed, producing promotional videos with the highest quality and the most striking ideas is not enough. Subtitles and captions have been used lately on a wider level in most videos that are distributed over different digital media platforms. Because today’s audiences prefer to find them in videos, both subtitles and captions have become a must-have.

Although many companies use the terms subtitles and captions interchangeably, each has its own characteristics and goals which we will clear up in this blog together with their importance in today’s life.

Subtitles Vs Captions

Although you may confuse captions with subtitles as both appear as text and represent the speeches between characters in videos, each of them has its purposes that make them unique. Let’s define them.

Captions

It is a full transcription of the audio in your video that viewers can read as text on the screen. The captioning service is mainly used for people with hearing impairments.

Captions differ from subtitles in that they are used also to aid viewers to have a complete understanding of all non-speech elements such as the sounds of coughing, sneezing, and hacking which are usually described in brackets.

Captioning has two types:

Open captions: They are part of the video and cannot be closed.

Closed captions: The viewer has the option to turn them on or off.

Subtitles

In simple terms, subtitling is a translation of a dialogue between characters in a video into a target language to help a non-native audience understand what is being said and get engaged with it.

Subtitling targets people who watch a video produced by another country. For example, when an English movie is distributed in other countries, it has to have subtitles in the languages of the target countries so that non-native speakers can understand it.

In most cases, subtitles include only a translated dialogue without any clarifications of other non-speech sounds being heard.

Now, after we have shown the key differences between captions and subtitles, you have to understand the importance of both services to decide which one will be beneficial for your future plans.

At Torjoman, we have an experienced subtitling team who are native speakers and can understand the linguistic and cultural differences between languages to produce the best subtitling services.

The following are 5 main reasons why you should use captions and subtitles in your video:

Accessibility for Hearing-Impaired People

In their continuous efforts to eliminate discrimination, the United States federal law requires captions for all videos in different industries to help people with hearing difficulties have equal rights.

Subtitles can also be beneficial if hard-of-hearing audiences watch videos in different languages. In this scenario, they can follow along and get a complete understanding of what is being said.

Effective Language Learning Tools

In fact, captions and subtitles are also helpful when people are learning new languages. Language centers and schools tend to use captioned and subtitled videos in their language lessons to help learners understand more about the language’s vocabulary, grammar, and structure.

Such videos also help learners improve their reading as well as listening skills as they compare what they listen to what they read.

Increasing the Number of Views

When you produce a video with captions and subtitles, you are making it accessible to all categories of people. Thus, the views will certainly increase notably. Moreover, if you promote your product or service through videos, adding captions and subtitles will help you reach a wider number of customers.

Helping Your Video Rank Higher in Search Engines

When your video has more text by adding subtitles and captions, it will have more chances to get recognized by search engines and consequently rank higher. Therefore, more people will find your video, and you will get both a greater number of views and increased engagement with new customers.

Approaching New Customers

Applying subtitles and captions in your ad video when posting it on social media platforms for instance will attract new customers for the following reasons:

• Most people prefer to watch videos without sounds either because they have noise in the background and will not hear well or they are in places where any sounds are prohibited such as hospitals.
• A U.S. survey involving viewers aged from 18 to 54 has found that 69% of people view videos without sounds in public places and 25% watch videos with sounds off privately. Hence, captions and subtitles increase the viewability of your videos and result in a great customer experience.
• Captions and subtitles will help native and non-native speakers understand your video and as result, your product or service will have a global reach.

In a nutshell, whether you are promoting your business through videos or airing your TV shows or series in other countries, captions and subtitles are essential to meet the requirements of today’s viewers.

Torjoman offers impeccable and high-quality subtitling services over a wide variety of languages. Contact us today!