Closed Captioning NLE Video

A complete closed captioning and subtitling solution

No additional hardware required. No generation loss!!!

With CaptionMaker-NLE (Windows) and MacCaption-NLE or DTV (Mac), you can closed caption any 720x486 uncompressed video sitting in your NLE system like Final Cut Pro, Avid, Media 100, Adobe Premiere, etc. without using any external closed caption encoder. Then you can dump the video to a tape format (BetaSP, DigiBeta etc.) via the NLE hardware (like Avid, AJA, Blackmagic DeckLink, Matrox, etc.).

To closed caption a video, you need the transcript of the video. There are many ways to transcribe a video. After obtaining the transcript, You will then import the script to the CPC software and format the script. Finally, you will listen to the video and synchronize the closed captions to the video by associating timecodes to each closed caption manually. Click here for details about closed caption preparation.

CPC software then exports a 720x486 black video with closed caption data on row 0 or 1. Avid systems, for example, the closed caption data sits on Row 1 and column 26. The 720x486 video file is then imported into the NLE system and put on the time line along with the original video. A picture-in-picture or crop effect is then applied to the imported video to mask off all but the closed caption image line to merge the imported video with your original video.

Sample 720x486 Black Movie. The closed caption data is the tiny dashes near the top of the video.

In case you are not adding the closed captions to the video yourself, you can send this black video to the video editor at a different location to superimpose closed captions to the original video. Because these files are 99% black, they can be zipped to about 0.15%. The .zip file can then be emailed or ftp’d to the video editor. You don't have to worry about big file sizes.

When you transfer the 720x486 video to NTSC via the NLE hardware (not Firewire) the closed caption data from Row 0 or Row 1 of 720x486 video is transferred to Line 21 of NTSC video.

You can get a sample of our 720x486 NLE video for your NLE system and see the closed captions being output to your TV.

Demo Software

You may also download our Windows or Mac demo software and try it out yourself. The demo software has all the features of the licensed version with some limitations. To protect the software we replace a few characters in each closed caption with '?' marks and limit the total number of closed captions to around 25.

NLE Encoder version - Encoding only

The Encoder version is for encoding closed captions only. It does not have the capability to prepare time stamped closed caption file from raw script. It has the same look and feel as the NLE version. See Feature Comparisons on the right hand side bar for details.

You can not prepare a time stamped closed caption files using the Encoder versions. You have to get a prepared time stamped closed caption file from a different source (e.g., CPC *.cap, DVD *.scc, Cheetah *.cap or *.asc etc.) and then use the Encoder versions to encode the closed captions on the video.

What else does the NLE version do?

Beside closed captioning DV videos, you can also export files to closed caption

• DV-25 and DV-50 Videos
• DVD Closed Captioning and Subtitling
• Web and mobile device captioning (post production)
• Live Closed Captioning

Other Options

If you want to closed caption your HD videos, then you should get the DTV or HD versions. They have all the features of NLE versions.