Creating a caption for amazon video might be a task filled with intricacies and arduousness. There are numerous – sometimes astringent – criteria one needs to fulfill to achieve a caption that can be used in the prime video. Amazon captioning services even recommends engaging with 3rd party amazon prime captioning services for the generation of accurate captions. 

But why caption Prime video at all? Let the numbers do the talking for you. Total users of Amazon prime worldwide is 150 million as of January 2020. Prime membership is expected to grow by 10% as estimated by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP). 

Amazon places special attention on each caption submitted to prime video direct. If the captions don’t meet the standards set by Amazon a publishing error is met. It takes amazon (nearly) two weeks to review the captions individually and make them live on the platform. As a result, not meeting the standards set by Amazon can result in wastage of valuable time. 

But what are the criteria in place?

1. Captions must conform to match the video source. All the dialogues in the caption files should be in the same language as the caption. For example, for a movie listed as available in the United States needs – for dialogues in English or any other language spoken in the movie – to have corresponding captions in English. 
2. If the video doesn’t contain localized language, the text for dialogues and forced narratives should be burnt into the video. 
3. All timed text assets must start with zero-hour time code (i.e. 00:00:00). Milliseconds are displayed with three digits. Assets must adhere to this standard to display the time synchronously. 
4. Captions for amazon prime should be UTF-8 character encoded. Amazon recommends specifying UTF-8 encoding to 3rd party prime video captioning services to ensure captions show characters correctly. 
5. Musical scores should be described as well. If it’s just an instrumental with no lyrics, use expressive words in brackets to express the beat and mood of the song. If the song has lyrics, the lyrics are to be made available. All songs must be presented with the artist and the song title in brackets.

Supported formats for captions:

1. SMPTE-TT (RP-2052) with an .xml file extension
2. STL (EBU standard) with a .stl file extension 
3. DFXP Full/TTML (Timed Text Markup Language) with a .dfxp file extension
4. iTT (iTunes Timed Text) files with a .iTT file extension
5. SCC (Scenarist Closed Caption) with a .scc file extension
6. SRT (SubRip text file format) with a .srt file extension

Online Amazon captioning services – the 3rd party Amazon Video Captioning Provider provide numerous benefits:

1. Ensure all the requirements – language matching, time stamps, UTF-8 encoding, and accurate recording of dialogues and background scores – are met. 
2. Closed captioning services are provided by experienced professionals. No automated captioning ensures accuracy to a tee. 
3. Quick turnaround time (TAT) ensuring captions can be released along with the rest of the contents. 
4. Affordable pricing such that captioning can be a seamless experience. 
5. Confidentiality, professionalism, and transp