Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH)

SDH are a relatively recent innovation in video & film accessibility. They’re not closed captions and they’re not subtitles – they’re something else altogether. If you have a DVD that you would like to show your students, you are probably wondering if SDH will help your students.

You’ve probably also wondered why this deliverable exists at all – after all, don’t captions provide accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing? There seems to be a lot of confusion about SDH. Let's first review the differences between closed captions and subtitles before continuing.

Re-Cap

Captions

Closed captions are intended for viewers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, and provide text for any audible information in the film or video, also known as “audibles.” Most of this information in videos is what characters or presenters say and relevant sounds – in short, the dialogue and sounds/music.

Subtitles

Subtitles, on the other hand, are intended for audiences that don’t speak the language used in the video, and translate linguistic content. Most of this is dialogue or voice-over as well, of course, but it also includes things like signs, newspaper headlines, or on-screen titles, which wouldn’t be covered by captions since they’re not audible information. And, of course, subtitles are a different language from the video, while captions are the same language.

SDH

SDH combines all this information – both audible and linguistic – and creates one file with all of it. Then, that file is translated for foreign-language audiences, and makes shows accessible to the deaf and hard-of hearing in those locales. As an example, we've taken a still from Night of the Living Dead (1968, directed by George A. Romero, in the public domain) and added SDH in Spanish:

Subtitles deaf hard of hearing example night of the living dead. — Note that both the background music and the street sign are included in the text.

So Is SDH the Same as Closed Captioning?

Very similar, but they aren't exactly the same.

Both will work well with your video content. Closed captioning and SDH both cater to the viewer who can’t hear audio. Here are some differences:

Closed captions text location varies while SDH follows the same formatting as standard subtitles.
Usually closed captions are white text on black background; SDH varies.

The Video I'd like to Share with Students Has SDH!

Perfect! The video is accessible. Please feel free to show the video to your class.

SDH provides:

Synchronized - the text content should appear at approximately the same time that audio would be available
Equivalent - content provided in captions should be equivalent to that of the spoken word
Accessible - captioned content should be readily accessible and available to those who need it