Camtasia 3.1 Has Open Captioning
At last! Camtasia 3.1, the screen recording software from TechSmith, was released last week with support for open captions. Why is this a big deal?
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. 794d), Subpart B, 1194.24, (c) says, “All training and informational video and multimedia productions which support the agency’s mission, regardless of format, that contain speech or other audio information necessary for the comprehension of the content, shall be open or closed captioned.”
The Web Content Acccessibility Guidelines (WCAG), section 1.4 says “For any time-based multimedia presentation (e.g., a movie or animation), synchronize equivalent alternatives (e.g., captions or auditory descriptions of the visual track) with the presentation. [Priority 1]” Priority 1 denotes guidelines which web content developers must satisfy in order to meet the basic requirements for accessibility.
That means, in order to satisfy the minimum accessibility requirements for video on the web, a video that contains an audio track must be captioned and it must use audio description where appropriate. Section 508 states that captions may be open or closed.
What’s the difference between open and closed captions? Open captions are always visible. There is no way to turn them off or hide them because they are burned into the video, so to speak. Closed captions are usually hidden until activated by software or special decoders. Captions are meant for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers but can also be useful for viewers with learning disabilities, non-native speakers, and users without sound cards or speakers, or users viewing in a situation that requires sound to be turned off.
What is audio description? Audio description is an audio track that explains what is taking place on screen. Whereas captions are for sighted users, audio description is for blind and visually-impaired users.
The inclusion of open captioning support in Camtasia 3.1 means that screen video content producers can now easily satisfy requirements that have been in place since 1999. Having used the feature as a beta tester, I can say that it really is as simple as importing a transcript from Microsoft Word or PowerPoint and then pointing and clicking to match up text with its place in the video. The captions are burned into the video during the production process. Since these are open captions, no special software is required to view them during playback.
What’s missing in this release? The most notable is the lack of font selection. Currently, the only choice for captions is Arial. Arial, as a screen font, has a number of problems in its design. As a caption font, it fares even worse. For a list of fonts you could be using for captions while we wait for someone to design a good caption font, read “What fonts should we use in the meantime?” at Screenfont.ca.
Also missing is closed captioning. However, as that is a slightly more difficult programming challenge, I am content living with open captioning for the time being. I will continue to voice my support for closed captioning and push for its release in a future version. It’s all about offering viewers a choice.
The inclusion of caption support is a welcome addition to Camtasia. If nothing else, we can say at least one software company is beginning to take accessibility in this area more seriously.
