[Noah Kadner] "Well technically it doesn't support closed captioning for anything- only DVD subtitles which are a completely different thing from closed captions."
Hi Noah,
Actually this is not correct. DVDs support both closed captions (NTSC only) and subtitles (NTSC/PAL). Closed captions can be added to any NTSC DVD project in DVD Studio Pro (and most other pro DVD authoring apps) using a SCC closed captions file. However DVD does not support Teletext (the PAL equivalent of closed captions).
Most commercial DVDs in the USA and Canada do include both closed captions and subtitles. The main difference is that subtitles usually only transcribe the spoken dialog, and are mainly aimed at people who are not hearing impaired, but lack fluency in the spoken language. Whereas closed captions are aimed at the deaf and hearing impaired, who need additional non-verbal audio cues (such as "[GUN SHOT]" or "[SPOOKY MUSIC]") to be transcribed in the text.
Subtitles which also contain these non-verbal cues are usually referred to as "SDH" (Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of hearing) tracks, but for various historical reasons, closed captions are the preferred method for the deaf and hearing impaired.
For more information, see:
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.45
http://www.cpcweb.com/dvd
CPC's software can be used to convert closed captions into subtitles for authoring PAL DVDs.
Jason Livingston
CPC
