In terms of accessibility and SEO, the addition of video captions offers many advantages for both viewers and content creators. But we all understand the creation of subtitles is not always simple. However, you can save a lot of time and energy by selecting the software for closed captioning that best fits your working style and finishes your captions in less time.
We know most people don’t have the time to research all the tools that are available online to make the best decision. That’s why we have researched and created this list which includes some versatile closed captioning software that can translate languages for you in real-time.
Closed Captioning Software
1. Wowza Streaming Engine
Wowza Streaming Engine software can ingest caption information and convert it to the appropriate caption format for streaming by using Apple HLS, Adobe HDS, and RTMP. A number of player technologies can be used to display closed CEA-608 captioning information in live streams, including Apple iOS phones, VideoLAN vlc players, and many set-top boxes. 
Features
- Convert and deliver captions that are embedded in the video content as well as captions that are supplied in external files alongside the video content, sometimes called sidecar files.
- Can extract 3GPP Timed Text caption data from MP4 files or from companion files that are used to specify the following formats.
- Connect to back-end caption providers that allow the server to ingest virtually any live caption format through its Java API.
- Offers a wide variety of supported caption formats and caption-conversion capabilities of any media server for live and video-on-demand content.
Pricing
All pricing schemes are based on the number of server instances that you use, so you can scale your solution affordable. Pricing starts at $65 per instance per month billed annually.
2. MacCaption & CaptionMaker
MacCaption & CaptionMaker is a user-friendly captioning and subtitling software for Mac and Windows. It offers an efficient way for you to comply with federal regulations while maintaining the fast delivery of time-sensitive captioned video material. Furthermore, it is a cloud-based service that uses the power of AI to return texting and timing results within your project. 
Features
- Save time by generating a text transcript of your video automatically using speech-to-text technology.
- Get text results faster than real time – save time by examining outcomes while the speech engine continues processing.
- Prepare captions and subtitles in several resolutions and frame rates that include 4K, UHD, and 23.98 fps.
- Provides a list of vocabulary words and phrases that reduces corrections.
Pricing
MacCaption & CaptionMaker provides three premium plans (Desktop Edition for $1,720/year, Pro Edition for $6,325/year and Enterprise Edition for $11,950/year). A free trial is also available.
3. Encoding.com
Encoding.com is the first and only encoding software that provides universal closed captioning support for delivery to all devices. Its strong, reliable, scalable workflow package allows digital video retailers to accomplish critical company goals such as providing support for popular learning software, expand their audience and more.
Features
- Can use any format that is used with HTML5 including cea-608/708, DFXP, SAMI, SCC, SRT, TTML 3GPP Timed Text, and WebVTT.
- This software effortlessly integrates with any existing digital video authoring and distribution workflow.
- Can extract, inject, copy and mux closed captions tracks into digital video or text files.
- Extract and convert standard closed caption tracks from source files into sidecar files.
Pricing
Encoding.com provides different paid plans that starts at $199 per month.
4. Maestra
Maestra is an automatic captioning, transcription, subtitling, and video dubbing tool powered by machine learning. You can use Maestra to generate captions automatically as well as automatically translate those captions to subtitles in over 60 languages, in just minutes.
Additionally, Maestra gives you the ability to automatically voiceover your videos to foreign languages using computer-generated voices. For example, if you work for an American e-learning company you can use Maestra to automatically voiceover your videos to French, Italian, and 18 other languages, enabling you to educate viewers all over the world! Lastly, Maestra offers an automatic audio transcription tool so that you can easily turn your audio files to text.
Features
- Automatic captioning
- Automatic foreign language subtitling
- Automatic transcription
- Automatic video dubbing
- Cloud editing features
- Easy to use the text editor
Pricing
It provides 4 plans with the features of live support, auto-translation, and which can be switch and cancel any time.
- $9/mo for 1 hour of upload.
- $29/mo for 5 hours of upload.
- $49/mo for 10 hours of upload.
- $99/mo for 25 hours of upload.
5. EZTitles
EZTitles is a professional subtitling and captioning software. It could be used to prepare subtitles for all kinds of content - Streaming Services, TV, Digital Cinema, Closed Captions, DVD, Blu-ray, Teletext, DVB.
EZTitles supports all languages - Western, Central and East European, East Asian, South Asian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian. Prepare perfect East Asian scripts with Vertical orientation, Horizontal groups, Rubies, and Bouten.
The user-friendly interface and the great support services help you work fast and efficiently in every situation.
Features
- Export more than 70 industry-standard file formats.
- Quality Control tools and automatic Fixes.
- Subtitling Assistant – build-in feature for automatic creation of subtitles and captions. The Assistant recognizes the speech from the audio and generates timed captions/subtitles or re-time the already loaded in EZTitles third-party transcript.
- Macros – you could record frequently repeated operations or group series of commands/actions and invoke them by a single button press.
- Auto Recovery – with EZTitles you will never lose the work you’ve put into your project no matter the circumstances.
Pricing
You could choose from three editions that differ only in the supported file formats for export:
- EZTitles Essentials – € 1720
- EZTitles Standard – € 1940
- EZTitles Ultimate – € 2380
