Product Feature - Closed Captions

For people with disabilities, media consumption can come with additional unexpected hurdles. It goes without saying, improving the experience for the differently abled is an important factor for any product.

Fortunately, there are already existing sets of functionality that can help enjoyment of media for those who have difficulties in sight or hearing. Some of these features, such as Closed Captions which we will be looking at today, are not only ubiquitous but also a legal requirement.

Simplestream’s App Platform supports Closed Captions as an optional feature for users. We have two main methods for ingesting captions, either from an embed in the stream video signal or by taking an uploaded file directly from Simplestream’s powerhouse CMS, Media Manager, and printing via timecodes alongside the stream. The user is then able to select Closed Captions in the HTML player to enjoy their favourite shows.

At Simplestream, we strive to improve our App Platform in order to support those with impediments which may reduce enjoyment of our customers services. For Channel 4 Paralympics, we have used the industry leading Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in order to create the best experience possible for impaired users, this will include live event closed captioning. This product feature is but a mere insight into one piece of functionality that we are including in our App Platform to create great user experiences.