Adding Closed Captioning

[skreed]

A hearing impaired couple have asked me to make a slideshow for their wedding and I wanted to know if there would be a way for me to throw in Closed Captions for the background music?

Thanks!

[handyguy]

Yeah right, on a PC?

Last time I looked it costs $1,500 for an encoding card. There was a program to do it for free on a Mac on the web tho.

Try using "Deaf" instead, its more PC.

[Baldrick]

Add switchable dvd subtitles with dvd-lab pro or ulead dvd workshop. Closed captions seems a bit too complex.

[skreed]

Thanks for the reply. I'll take your suggestions and look into these "switchable dvd subtitles". Just out of curiosity, what does it take to implement closed captions?

[Cornucopia]

You can do it for free (little bit of time effort though) if you use SCC Tools. (I've used it successfully)

It's not that complex, but certainly moreso than std DVD subtitles. Bear in mind that the style context is different, too.

e.g.: Scene with dramatic music and FX, Main actor, facing away from audience tells something revealing to actress offscreen...

[Subtitle]

What you don't know is that I, Snidely Whiplash, have rerouted the tracks so the train will roll right over you. HA!HA!HA!HA!

No!

vs.

[Closed Caption]

...dramatic music...

"What you don't know is that I, Snidely Whiplash, have rerouted the tracks so the train will roll right over you. HA!HA!HA!HA!"

(offscreen)"No!"

do a google search and read up on "acceptable" captioning style.

Scott

[handyguy]

Thats news for me, thats great we can do it ourselves.

Seems a bit of work. Here is some info on captioning tricks, plus converting subs to CCs. :
http://www.geocities.com/mcpoodle43/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML

Instead of captioning the music, how about using karaoke?

[Cornucopia]

Most people referring to Karaoke are talking about transcribing the words of the songs to text/subtitles/captions. You can do that if you like, and if your material would be enhanced that way.
What I described was background instrumental music. Standard captioning procedure is to "annotate" the fact that there is music, as the deaf or hearing-impaired audience wouldn't otherwise know that there was dramatic music there (or sound effects, etc.). Usually this is done with ellipsis, a symbol the shows tied quarter notes, and then a short mention of the music and then sometimes closing with another set of tied quarter notes.

Like I said, there are plenty of good guides on proper style for captioning, and as the hearing-impaired community makes regular use of the service, it's strongly suggested that the style be adhered to. Makes for a less obtrusive program, etc.

Scott