Nowadays, captions can be classified into four types: Open captions, Closed captions, Subtitles, and Subtitles for Deaf and Hard of hearing (SDH).

1. Subtitles: Invented in the 1930s, when films with spoken audio were born and needed to be translated into the language that a wider group of international audiences can understand. Non-speech elements, however, are not transcripted into subtitles for they only serve the group of audience with no hearing problems.
2. Subtitles for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH): Just like Subtitles but with all of the sound effects, noise, music background, and other non-speech elements in order to serve the group of people of the deaf and hard of hearing.
3. Open captions: Invented in the 1950s, open captions were officially born to assist people with hearing impairment in enjoying the video in full context with both speech and non-speech elements, all of the sound and noise occurring in the video at the moment, such as spoken words, information about the video, sound, noise, or music playing in the background. For example, [applauds], [traffic noise], [birds singing], etc. Open captions are a part of the video itself since the captions can not be turned on or off.
4. Closed captions: Just like open captions but the viewers can turn the captions on and off if needed. Closed captions are also an ideal choice of video editors since they help to fix the caption easier and faster than open captions.

Following the invention of subtitles in the 1930s, open captions were officially born in the 1950s to assist people with hearing impairment in enjoying the video in full context. However, the subtitle is only convenient to those who have hearing problems, those who don’t need it consider it as something annoying to their viewing. As a result, 20 years later, closed captioned appeared as an innovation in film making. Since then, they have become a necessary requirement for broadcast television in the United States.

In case business owners want to add subtitles to their branding videos, freelance subtitles & captions services will be an ideal choice since professional freelancers can offer their clients high-quality services at a more reasonable price. Not to mention, freelancers are those who have honed their skills in a long period of time and have deep knowledge in a specific field compared to other positions.