Captions differ from foreign language subtitles in that they are coloured and positioned to indicate who is speaking, and provide information on music and sound effects which may be crucial to the understanding of the program.  Some are merely translation of a foreign language into English which appears on the bottom of the screen.

Why Caption

Captioning ensures that every member of every viewing audience has the abilitiy to access broadcast messages through TV, video, DVD, web streaming and even live events

Who uses captions?

People who are Deaf rely on captions to follow the soundtrack on television videos. People whohave some degree of hearing loss use captions to help them understand the soundtrack.  There are around 1.9 million hearing impaired people in Australia.

Captions can be used by anyone who is trying to watch a program or video in a noisy environment or where the volume cannot be adjusted such as shopping centres, airports, gyms, shows, banks, pubs, and clubs.