>> >>

Vendor Acquisition: Delivering Your Product

What you deliver to the captioning vendor depends on their requirements and your preferences. Typically, video files are delivered in one of two ways:

Uploaded through their website or an FTP program or
Via a shipper or courier in DVD or tape format.

If you're uploading the file, check whether there is a maximum allowable file size - few situations are more frustrating than trying to upload a file without success only to find later that your file was too large! Also ask the vendor if they recommend a particular file format. MPEG-4 and QuickTime's MOV formats are popular, but good vendors should be able to work with nearly any file format. Most vendors will just ask for a copy of the video you have encoded for the web.

If you're shipping the file on a hard drive, flash drive, or data DVD, again, ask what video file type they recommend. If you have worked with captioning companies for other projects such as a DVD or TV program, you may be familiar with the concept of placing a visible timecode windowburn on your video. Most likely, the vendor will not require this for a web video, as the timing is based on the video's start point rather than on frames.

You can often cut costs if you can provide a verbatim transcript along with the video. This is not a preproduction script but an actual word-for-word transcript of what was said.