Video Accessibility Services

Accessible video generally needs synchronized captions for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, audio description of important visual information for viewers who are blind or have low vision, and often a transcript. Multilingual audiences may also need subtitles or a sign-language interpreter. Section 508, WCAG, and ADA Title II describe these expectations for public-facing and workplace video.

Captions carry the spoken dialogue plus relevant sounds (music, a door closing) for viewers who can't hear the audio, in the same language as the video. Subtitles translate the dialogue into another language for viewers who can hear but don't speak the source language. Many projects need both.

Yes. Taika can caption, describe, transcribe, and subtitle existing video, and advise on what each title needs to meet Section 508 / WCAG. Share your library size, languages, and target dates when you request a quote.

Audio description is a narrated track that conveys important visual information — on-screen text, actions, scene changes — for viewers who are blind or have low vision. WCAG 2.1 AA includes audio description for pre-recorded video, so it belongs in the plan for public-facing content, not just captions.

Yes — captions and descriptions only help if the player exposes them. An accessible player has keyboard-operable controls, a caption toggle, and works with screen readers. Taika can advise on player behavior alongside the media work so the whole experience holds up.

Yes — live meetings, webinars, and town halls can be covered with CART real-time captioning and ASL interpretation, and the recording can then be captioned and described for on-demand publishing. See ASL and CART for the live side.

Closed captions can be switched on and off by the viewer and are delivered as a separate track or file your player reads. Open captions are burned into the picture and can't be turned off. Closed captions are generally preferred for accessibility because viewers can adjust them and assistive technology can read them; open captions suit social feeds and screens where you can't control the player.

Rarely on their own. Auto-generated captions routinely misrecognize names, acronyms, accents, and technical vocabulary, and they don't mark speaker changes or meaningful sounds. WCAG asks for captions that are accurate and synchronized, so raw machine output is a starting point that needs human correction, not a finished deliverable.

WCAG Success Criterion 1.2.5 (Level AA) calls for audio description of pre-recorded video with synchronized audio. If the speaker already says everything that matters visually, a separate description may not add anything, and a transcript or an existing narration can satisfy the need. If important information appears only on screen, such as slides, charts, on-screen text, or actions, it needs to be described.

It depends on who you are. Federal agencies and federal contractors work to Section 508, which incorporates WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA. State and local governments fall under the DOJ's ADA Title II rule, which adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Colleges, school districts, and private organizations are usually measured against WCAG 2.1 AA through ADA claims and contract terms. Captions and audio description are in scope under all three.

The number of titles and total running time, the languages spoken and the languages you need, whether you need captions only or captions plus audio description and transcripts, the platform that hosts the video, and your deadline. A sample file or a link to your most complex video helps us scope it accurately.