What is "Closed Caption"?

[mp3boy]

Sorry to ask you something which may look dumb but I've been into dvd last time however I never heard it before and couldn't find a definition for it... and whats the different between closed caption and subtitle?

[adam]

Closed captions are a special type of subtitle for the hearing impaired. Subtitles just show the words that the actors speak. Closed captions show sounds like, "door slams" or "music playing." The formats are also stored differently on the disk.

[mp3boy]

thanks dude, I was thinking its kinda something big that i am loosing

[tompika]

Every NTSC TV's support CC so Americans can watch CNN in a pub while listening to the music and drinking beer.

And there's nothing wrong with that...

[energy80s]

Closed Captions are just an American way of displaying subtitles on broadcast TV. Its the same as Page 888 on UK teletext.

[tompika]

Closed Captions are just an American way of displaying subtitles on broadcast TV. Its the same as Page 888 on UK teletext.

Right, but you cant turn on page 888 when watching VHS movies.

[energy80s]

But then Americans haven't had the riches that is TELETEXT! I still prefer it to the digiguide crap of BBCi. And if you used an SVHS machine, it would record the teletext signal alongside the TV signal and let you read subtitles for any TV programme on any teletext TV. Closed Caption was just a half-arsed system that would fit into the NTSC television signal.

[handyguy]

Not sure what you are talking about with that teletext there.

PC's can capture closed captions to a text file. You can also change your closed captions to open captions, so your recorded dvd has open captions.

Subtiles aren't closed, which is primary how it varies from CC's.

The neat thing about europe is that a radio there has a sub channel that can display captions if you have the box for it. America has a sub channel too but they aren't using this option that I know of.

[Madz]

In the States, it's called the Radio Data System (RDS) & is available to FM stations. I think the original concept was to allow stations to scroll things like weather/storm warnings, news headlines & song artist/title data on the alpha display in RDS-equipped receivers. Most stations in my area that have it, use it only to display their call letters or station nickname, although a few actually do show artist/title of current playing song &/or a scrolling station slogan. I can get it only on a Grundig Worldband (tuned to FM band) receiver and my car radio, but that's it.

[iantri]

Handyguy; teletext is a far more powerful system in the PAL standard that allows for text data of various sorts (news headlines, weather, etc) to be transmitted with a TV signal. Closed captions are available through teletext in Britain and much of Europe. They can not be recorded with a regular VCR because the bandwidth is too great; the VCR can not record the signal with high enough quality.



BTW, some PAL VHS tapes have closed captioning data in the NTSC format but on Line 22 -- appearantly, some VCRs/TVs can decode this.