The Web Access Project is made possible by the support of the Telecommunications Funding Partnership for People with Disabilities, and The Boston Foundation. This paper will describe NCAM's prototype method for captioning QuickTime video clips. The current technology employed is Apple Macintosh-based only but the captioned movies operate on either Macintosh or PC platforms. It is important to note that the procedures described in this paper represent solutions still under development. They are likely to change as technology improves.
Open captions require no decoder in order to be seen by the viewer.
In 1972, Julia Child's The French Chef became the first program to be broadcast with open captions. Closed captions, which require a special decoder in order to be made visible, made their debut in March 1980. The growth of closed captioning throughout the 1980s was steady yet slow. Sales were low, making broadcasters reluctant to support closed captioning because statistics indicated that the audience was relatively small. It was obvious that something was needed both to simultaneously enlarge the audience as well as to increase the number of closed-captioned programs available.