Best practices on video captioning/subtitling

Fabio Santos

hi there
I am becoming really interested in subtitle design/ composition I most of the time struggle to read captions quickly and easy. I think that Arial or Helvetica actually don't make captions very readable.

has anyone ever came across to good caption formating or can share tips on which typeface and settings are the best ones to consider for such a medium? E.g: type size; spacing; how many words per lines; how many lines should be displayed for better reading; typeface vs background color; TV vs phone vs computer screen...

would be great to get some tips and recommendations fronm the amazing and skilled community.

looking forward for an interesting discussion.

best 
Fabio

  

joeclark

Do keep in mind that captoning and subtitling are two separate things.

Screenfont.CA describes what little research has been done, but I see now it is misconfigured in some way. I’ll have to fix that.

I appreciate your intent to do things well, but it is almost a hopeless cause. I will nonetheless answer any and all specific questions, so let ’er rip.

Ray Larabie

I've designed a typeface based on FCC closed caption specifications. There were some aspects that I didn't have control over. The closed caption specs were mandated by the US government and I don't know how they determined those.

The monospaced, serif and other styles are mandated by the FCC. 

To develop my typeface, I tried to create the worst display conditions I could come up with. I picked up old tv sets from the curb, recorded on dollar store VHS tapes at the lowest quality setting and then made adjustments to the typeface to make it as legible as I could. Sitting further away, closer, sunlight, darkness, squinting, wearing old sunglasses. Even if you can optimize for a certain screen size, you don't know how far away the viewer will be, if it's day or night. You can't account for everything.

One things that I already knew from working in the video game business is that subtle horizontal lines tend to fuzz out when it's light on dark. It's not just a CRT thing, it affects some LCD screens as well. Vertical lines can have subtle angles. I ended up with kind of squarish forms with quick flat angles on top. Certain shapes were whittled away because they ended up making more fuzz.

Letter spacing can get tighter than usual. Reading captions doesn't seem to be the same as immersive reading. The type of rhythm that makes a book typeface pleasant to read didn't seem to apply as much to captions. The viewer looks at the picture and glances at the captions. Almost like glancing at a label. When you read paragraphs in a book, you don't want to lose your spot...but with captions, words are presented in small chunks so it's different. You don't want to go so tight that letters glop together but having wider letters with tighter spacing was easier to read than narrower letters with wide spacing.

Obviously, there's a trade-off with screen real estate. The easiest captions to read would be giant letters that fill up the entire screen but then you couldn't see what's going on.

There's kind of a dazzle effect with sharp lines and high contrast. You've seen this yourself in film subtitles. When the subtitles are a bit soft, you don't even notice them. When they're too crisp, it ruins the experience. More legible? Maybe. More enjoyable? Certainly not. I recommend to clients setting the white from 90-93%..it depends how black the black is. But 100% white is probably not the way to go. It was certainly a problem with those old TV sets although I imagine it's not so much of a problem these days.

Hinting is not a good idea. Even for low resolution screens. It's more pleasant to read if it's a bit soft.

Under bad conditions, the slightly squished m, was, I think more recognizable than a wider m. The lowercase w needed more width and dropped middle to keep it from looking like a smeared v.

Fabio Santos

joeclark said:

Do keep in mind that captoning and subtitling are two separate things.

Screenfont.CA describes what little research has been done, but I see now it is misconfigured in some way. I’ll have to fix that.

I appreciate your intent to do things well, but it is almost a hopeless cause. I will nonetheless answer any and all specific questions, so let ’er rip.

Let's say that the system I am creating I have total control over the fonts I choose for subtitling/captioning. So the idea would be using a typeface that is very readable across multiple devices (web, iOS, Android, and TV)

I would love to understand what is the difference between subtitling and captioning. Please refer me to a nice resource where I can learn more.  

Fabio Santos

 Ray that's such an insightful answer. Thank you for that.
The only problem I see using a custom font is system compatibilities. Sometimes certain fonts don't render in native apps.

Aside from that, your insights were exactly what I was looking for! 
Is this research all made by you or you learned it via other resources? would be great if you could share more on this topic

joeclark

I've designed a typeface based on FCC closed caption specifications.

That’s like reconstructing a human face from a driver’s-licence photograph. Ray’s contribution can be disregarded, I think.

Ray Larabie

I'm not sure what the difference between captions and subtitles is. I've never looked into that. I'd also like to know.

Is this research all made by you or you learned it via other resources?

It was my own research and I didn't have a budget to work with. I got some feedback from my agent and from television manufacturers but mostly for technical aspects. A lot of the design is counter-intuitive because we're all used to working black on white. If you're trying to make existing fonts work for captions, trust what you see on screen. Alter the spacing, try scaling wider or narrower, turn down the white and keep it a little fuzzy.

yanone

I am becoming really interested in subtitle design/ composition I most of the time struggle to read captions quickly and easy. I think that Arial or Helvetica actually don't make captions very readable.
has anyone ever came across to good caption formating or can share tips on which typeface and settings are the best ones to consider for such a medium? E.g: type size; spacing; how many words per lines; how many lines should be displayed for better reading; typeface vs background color; TV vs phone vs computer screen...

I’ve done some subtitling. Two lines are very cumbersome to read especially for fast talking. Also very short subtitles (very fast switching) is difficult to follow. So you need to find a balance. Best to follow are longish, one-line subtitles.

Personally, I set my VLC to Underware’s Dolly for viewing films with subtitles. Serifs will always work better than Sans Serifs for fast reading (IMO). The soft appearance of Dolly works well for me for this task. For color, I think that white with a shadow (and maybe small outline) are established and it works well.

joeclark

I fixed the DNS on Screenfont.CA, and it now works again.

Two of my responses in this thread have “mysteriously” disappeared. I am the last remaining lifer in the captioning business and am the only actual expert on caption and subtitle typography. But if what I write here is going to get deleted behind my back, Fabio will have to mail me directly.

Upon closer inspection, I see these two issuances from Ray:

• I’ve designed a typeface based on FCC closed caption specifications.

  That’s like reconstructing a human face from a driver’s-licence photograph. Ray’s contribution can be disregarded, I think.

• I’m not sure what the difference between captions and subtitles is. I’ve never looked into that. I’d also like to know.

In other words, Ray Larabie designed a captioning font from a specification book and without being able to differentiate captions and subtitles. Yet my responses are getting voted down.

Do you want my help or not?