Include closed captions in a live stream or transcoder in Wowza Video Legacy

The Wowza Video™ service can receive closed caption data from a video source so that captions appear when the stream is played. Closed captions make your streams accessible to hearing-impaired viewers and allow your streams to comply with the United States FCC 21st Century Communication and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) of 2010.

You'll need to choose which workflow you'll use, live stream or transcoder, before you begin this task. See Decide between a live stream or transcoder workflow for more information about these workflows.

About closed captions

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Just as there are a number of protocols and formats for receiving and playing live adaptive bitrate streams, there are multiple types of closed-caption formats that can be used when streaming live events. Wowza Video can receive two closed-caption formats from a video source: CEA-608 (digital) and onTextData.

• CEA-608 supports playback over HLS on Apple iOS devices, VideoLAN VLC player, and many set-top boxes.
   
• onTextData supports playback over HDS and RTMP, including JW Player.

Some video sources can send either CEA-608 or onTextData captions to a transcoder. Other sources can send both. Whatever format or formats Wowza Video receives, it decodes and translates incoming caption events so that captions appear when the stream is viewed over all three playback protocols—HDS, HLS, and RTMP.

Live stream workflow

Including closed captions is an advanced configuration and is only available through the transcoder workflow. To display closed captions on a live stream, you'll need to update your transcoder to indicate the type of closed caption that the video source is sending to Wowza Video.

1. After creating your live stream, click Transcoders on the left-hand side of Wowza Video, and select the transcoder for the live stream you created. Transcoders created through the live stream workflow appear as [Live stream name] / Transcoder on the Transcoder page.
2. On the Transcoder Setup tab, click Edit.
3. For the closed caption option, choose one of the following:

• CEA-608-digital - Captions that can be played on devices and browsers that support HLS, including the Original HTML5 player in Wowza Video.
• onTextData - Captions that can be played on devices and browsers that support Adobe HDS or RTMP.
• CEA-608-digital and onTextData  - Captions that can be played on devices and browsers that support HDS, HLS, and RTMP.

4. Click Save.
    

Transcoder workflow

In the transcoder workflow, you'll manually configure the transcoder, output renditions, and stream targets to fit your specific streaming solution.

To display closed captions on a custom transcoder, choose the type of closed caption that the video source is sending to Wowza Video.

1. Under Advanced on the left navigation bar, click Transcoders, and then click Add Transcoder.
2. On the Transcoder Setup page, enter a Transcoder Name and Broadcast Location. If your subscription allows, choose a Transcoder Type and Billing Mode.
    
3. For Closed Captions, choose one of the following:

• CEA-608-digital - Captions that can be played on devices and browsers that support HLS, including the Original HTML5 player in Wowza Video.
• onTextData - Captions that can be played on devices and browsers that support HDS or RTMP.
• CEA-608-digital and onTextData  - Captions that can be placed on devices and browsers that support HDS, HLS, and RTMP.

5. Specify the other settings for your transcoder setup, review your choices, and click Add to create the transcoder.

Wowza Video creates the transcoder and displays the Outputs & Targets tab of the transcoder detail page.

The transcoder isn't finished until you create outputs and targets for it. For more information how to finish creating the transcoder, see Create a custom transcoder with many outputs and targets in Wowza Video.