Television channels in India are offering foreign language programs and films with English or regional subtitles.

Character generators, a combination of technologically advanced hardware and compatible software that include a wide variety of 2D/3D graphic tools, create 3D pie charts, bar charts, and financial line charts. Multi-layer effects from varied transition effects palette within a matter of seconds can also be applied. Multiple channels of real-time HD graphics may be played out together, thus greatly enhancing production flexibility and also saving from investing in separate systems.

With built-in transparency levels and a downstream linear alpha keyer, character generators have the ability to instantly insert characters over a live video feed like sports.

Some of the major brands of character generators include Avid, B&H Photo-Video Pro Audio, Broadcast Software Solutions, Chyron, Compix Media, Datavideo, Evertz, Horita, Keywest Technology, MagicSoft, Media Refinery, NewTek, Pixel Power, Stream Labs, Tightrope Media Systems, Video Stream Networks (VSN), Vizrt, and VTP Professional & Broadcast Video Equipment.

Professional subtitles are usually created with specialized computer software and hardware where the video is digitally stored on a hard disk, making each individual frame instantly accessible. Programs are subtitled either for people who are hard of hearing, which may be required by government regulations, or to reach an audience that does not speak the original language of the program. A large number of television channels in India, in an effort to popularize their foreign / English language programs and films, are increasingly offering them with English or regional subtitles.

Subtitles created for TV broadcast are stored in a variety of file formats. The majority of these formats are proprietary to the vendors of subtitle insertion systems. DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray use bitmap subtitles that are included to the total stream using an authoring tool. The usage of DVB in modern broadcast stations calls for multiple channel subtitle playout system.

In the DVB standard, subtitles are generated as a graphical bitmap and then encoded and compressed into the DVB delivery format. The subtitle data is multiplexed with the video, audio data and possibly other subtitle languages and then transmitted as part of the station's output transport stream to the viewer's decoder. Once a decoder receives the data the subtitle is re-constructed in the decoder's memory. A user can select whether to display subtitles or not and, if available, which one of several languages. At the appropriate time the decoder will then display the subtitle on-screen.

An important aspect of building a subtitling system is the integration to the rest of the TV-station. The subtitle QC department is normally integrated to the office network with mail and Internet. while the subtitle transmission system is installed onto the control network for the total transmission system. Reliability is another important aspect in subtitling, with a low level of acceptance of errors in subtitling from the audience. Because the DVB multiplex can carry multiple subtitle streams, multiple languages can be supported.

New technologies being introduced in the segment integrate transcoding applications into subtitling systems, accelerating the postproduction workflow by allowing users to bypass the non-linear editor (NLE), and transcoding content directly with subtitles.