New Media Services

608(SD) vs. 708(HD) CC

CEA-608 captions was the original closed caption standard for analog TV.  At times, this is referred to ‘line 21’ or ‘VBI’ captions since they reside on line 21 of the vertical interval.  This type captioning appeared as little dots and dashes on the top of the video image and made it possible for TV sets to read this code and turn it into text for hard of hearing viewers.  It became the standard for tape masters and made it possible to duplicate tape master without losing closed captioning information.  The CEA-608 is now moving away from line 21 or VBI dots and dashes into metadata tracks for digital television.  For these new DTV workflows it is also required by the FCC that not only CEA-608 data is present but also the new generation CEA-708 data is also included with the video.

CEA-708 captions have many more options for the viewer for both SD and HD formats.  For example, the font, color, size and background of the caption ‘look’ can be chosen through the TV menu.  It gives the viewer more options for their preference for the ‘look’ of the captions.  Also, since there is no vertical interval in DTV, 708 captions are embedded in a MPEG-2 video stream of the digital media.    For HD tape masters the 708 captions are placed in line 9 of the VANC area and can contain multiple languages.

Captions and Subtitle Services is able to export files for your project for both CEA-608 and CEA-708 captions, thus allowing your media to be accessible for all TV sets and for your required specs for broadcasting. Please note that 608 and 708 captions are required for all DTV broadcasts. We can in many cases caption your HD tape masters with a fast and money saving system which is completely internet based.  This new HD captioning workflow is called e-Captioning.