Closed Caption Capabilities
Closed captions provide not only dialogue text but also descriptions of other sounds that
are part of a scene (such as a phone ringing or a dog barking). They are intended to
enhance the viewing experience for deaf and hearing-impaired viewers.
To view closed captions, you must have a suitable decoder—either built in to the television
or as a standalone device. When creating closed captions, you choose the text’s position
and, in some cases, its color—the font is controlled by the decoder.
Because a lot of computers do not have closed caption decoders, playing DVD titles on
them means you generally cannot count on being able to show any included closed
captions.
Due to their reliance on information contained in line 21 of the video signal, closed
captions, as supported by the DVD specification, apply to NTSC programs only.
See
Adding Closed Captions to a DVD
for details on importing a closed caption file.