Links and information about captioning

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Caption quality and production guidelines exist, but are not universally followed. They tend to have small variations for regional tastes and dialects. Some captions are better than none, so if we at least get started, we can raise the bar as people get used to the idea. The most relevant guidelines we could find are listed below :
Read More »	The Captioned Media Program guidelines : A very comprehensive Acrobat (PDF) document on style and presentation of captions. This is about 1.3 MB so please wait while it downloads - or right-click the link and choose 'Save as' The UK's ITC have Guidance on Standards for Subtitling : Word document 130K, or as HTML pages, it is less comprehensive than the CMP document but worth a look.
Read More »	For Canada, the best guidelines are provided by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. Found under the social policy issues area, their Closed Captioning Manual (830k Acrobat document) published in January 2003, is worth a read for comparative purposes. It offers recommendations on captioning for Canadian English speakers. In Australia, the Australian Caption Centre's guidelines, released in 2001, are standards applicable to TV productions but of course can be used as general advice for caption presentation.
Similary to the production guidelines above, studies and submissions from interest groups are available which explore Caption Quality issues. Two resources provide primary discussion in depth :
Read More »	Much more information about the general issues raised by caption legislation can be found on this page, a Captioning standars review, again from the DCITA in Australia. Gallaudet University's caption quality report from their September 2002 conference, details ratings of captioning performance. The report contains feedback about caption quality for pre-recorded and live captioning, with a breakdown of the most important points from a users perspective.
The W3C are the world standards organisation for internet content. Their main aim is to ensure the internet moves forward in a sustainable way. The timed text standard being developed is directly applicable to all forms of subtitling and captioning.
Read More »	Read the latest W3C timed text working draft (September 2003) Read the W3C timed text standard initial draft More about this on News.com Search the timed text mailing list discussion
Deaf awareness and user groups : Hard of hearing users are the most likely group of people to benefit from captioned media. There are a large number of these groups active on the internet with lively discussion areas.
Read More »	Deafonline captioning discussion group Deafonline main site UK RNID Discussion forum RNID have an extensive website too.
Read More »	Hearing Exchange, founded by Paula Rosenthal is an online community for exchanging ideas and information about hearing loss. It provides support and information for deaf and hard of hearing users in the US and beyond.