For all prerecorded video files, there must be synchronized and accurate closed captions.
What to do:
- Add closed captioning to all videos with
- for video-only, you may add an option to turn on an audio description within the
- video itself or create a separate video with the audio description
Note that closed captions are more than subtitles. Subtitles merely convey dialogue. Closed captions also include any important sounds in the video (e.g. door slamming, background music, etc.)
Here’s a great distinction between the two from Matinee.co.uk: Subtitles assume the audience can hear the audio but needs the dialogue available as well (for instance, the dialogue may be in another language or difficult to understand). Closed captioning assumes the audience cannot hear the audio and needs a text description of what they would be hearing.
Resources:
- How to use YouTube’s automatic subtitles to make closed captions
- Amara video editing software (free with registration)
Plain English Explanation:
To satisfy this requirement, your videos need to have closed captions.
Closed captions require some amount of manual work but there are a handful of free or inexpensive tools out there to make the process free or relatively cheap.
What is really important is that your closed captions sync up with the video and that they accurately convey the spoken words.
Automatic closed captions – even from YouTube – aren’t perfect so you do need to edit them before you consider a video finished.
