The importance of captioning lies in its ability to make video more accessible in numerous ways. It allows d/Deaf and hard of hearing individuals to watch videos, helps people to focus on and remember the information more easily, and lets people watch it in sound-sensitive environments.

Photo captions, also known as cutlines, are a few lines of text used to explain and elaborate on published photographs. Captions more than a few sentences long are often referred to as a “copy block”. They are a type of display copy.

An example of a caption is a descriptive title under a photograph. An example of a caption are the words at the bottom of a television or movie screen to translate the dialogue into another language or to provide the dialogue to the hard of hearing. A title or brief explanation attached to an illustration or cartoon.

Captioning Types, Methods, and Styles

• Closed Captions. These are hidden on the 21st line of the vertical blanking interval (VBI) of a video signal and are made visible by a decoder at the time of viewing.
• Off-line. Off-line captions are created and added after a video segment has been recorded and before it is aired or played.
• On-line.
• Pop-on.
• Roll-up.
• Paint-on.

The standard (or expanded) caption are the mini stories we discussed earlier. These captions typically have three sentences, although you can get by with two sentences if space is limited. Lead in: two or three words, this is the mini headline for the caption.

Community captions are when fans of a channel write and upload their own subtitles to a video – either in the original language of the video or in another language. YouTube says only a tiny percentage of videos have community captions uploaded to them, which means it’s not worth continuing with the tool.

Community contributions will be discontinued across all channels after September 28, 2020. Community contributions allowed viewers to add closed captions, subtitles, and title/descriptions to videos. This feature was rarely used and had problems with spam/abuse so we’re removing them to focus on other creator tools.

How to help your local community

1. Get involved as a volunteer. There are lots of volunteering opportunities out there.
2. Support local businesses.
3. Tidy up.
4. Help your neighbours.
5. Donate things.
6. Donate money.

YouTube plans to discontinue its community captions feature, which allowed viewers to add subtitles to videos, because it was “rarely used and had problems with spam/abuse,” the company announced.