How to Turn Closed Captioning On or Off on Vizio TVs

Closed captions or subtitles are very useful. They can help people with hearing impairments, or people who don’t understand the language completely. You can even use captions to help learn a new language altogether.

You can turn the closed captions on Vizio TVs on or off really easily. Read on and find out how to do so. Also, learn how to customize the closed captions to your liking. If you use digital captions, you can change and customize them.

This can be particularly useful to people who need bigger size captions for better visibility.

How Close Captions Work on Vizio TVs

You can use closed captions or subtitles on your Vizio TV whenever you want. They’re easy to enable or disable, based on your preference. I, for one, always use closed captions, because it helps me follow the dialogue in its entirety.

Even if you have a perfect understanding of English, some characters in shows and movies have thick accents, or they’re just plain difficult to understand. For these reasons, it seems sensible to keep CC on, but some people find the captions distracting, which is also a valid point.

Anyway, here’s how you can enable or disable closed captions on your Vizio TV:

Use the Remote

If you still have the original remote to your Vizio TV you’ll notice that it does have a Closed Caption button. To turn off captions on your Vizio TV simply press that button and they should automatically come on or turn off depending on the current CC status.

Keep in mind, the placement of the CC button is different depending on the remote that you’re using. If you’re using a Universal Remote you may not have this button at all.

Turn Off Closed Captioning in the Settings

If for some reason you’re having trouble turning off the Closed Captioning, try going through the settings. Some of these instructions may vary depending on your model, but you should be able to follow along pretty easily.

Power on your Vizio TV.

Tap the Menu button on your remote.

The button may vary depending on the model of your TV, but it should be easy to spot.

Tap on the HDTV Settings.

Tap on the Closed Captions or CC option.

Select Digital or Analog Closed Captioning. Turn Closed Captions On or Off depending on your personal preference.

Let’s Talk About Digital CC

Abandoned a long time ago, Analog closed captioning is a thing of the past. Most modern TV companies only support digital captioning. However, analog captioning might still have its uses. The only time these are useful, however, is when you’re using regular TV programming, commonly known as “over the air”. These are free channels that your TV picks up via the antenna, you don’t pay a dime for them.

Digital CC is much more interesting because it allows you to change and customize the captions at will. Enter the captions menu on your Vizio TV once more:

1. Turn the TV on.
2. Press the V or VIA (Vizio Internet Apps) button on the remote.
3. Choose the HDTV Settings.
4. Tap on the Closed Captions option.
5. Select Digital Closed Captioning.
6. Now you can adjust all the closed caption settings to your preference. You might need to select the Custom captions option from the menu, depending on your TV model.
7. Then, you can increase or decrease the text size, color, etc.

Digital captioning is definitely better because it gives you a number of choices. You can change these settings back to default if you don’t like the changes.

Is There a Way to Disable the CC Entirely?

We’re glad you asked because there is a way. Here’s how to disable the closed captions on a Vizio TV:

1. Power up your TV.
2. Press the V button.
3. Choose Setup and confirm with OK.
4. Choose CC and confirm.
5. Turn the captions On or Off, depending on your preference.
6. Save the changes by hitting Exit on your remote.

That was really easy, wasn’t it? There are some situations when closed captioning is very distracting and causes more harm than good. If you’re a perfectionist, you might get annoyed by bad subtitles. You don’t have to put up with that, just disable them and keep watching your show or movie.

Follow the same steps to get the subtitles back on when you’re done watching, so you don’t forget that you disabled them. Of course, you can keep them off permanently if you like.

What to do when CC stays on

Closed captioning is such a prominent feature these days so nearly every device you use has the option to turn them on. If you’ve turned off the subtitles on your Vizio yet they remain, it’s likely because a connected device is displaying them.

Open the Settings on the connected device that you’re using to stream content and verify that the subtitles are turned off. If they are on, that’s the reason turning them off through the Vizio settings didn’t work.

Do You Keep CC On or Off?

Closed captions are a lifesaver in some scenarios, in others they’re useless. If you’re watching a foreign movie, they’re very helpful. And like we said, you can even use them to begin learning a language, or to refresh your Spanish or French, for example.

Did you ever notice captions that were so bad you had to turn them off? How do you like your captions, larger or smaller? Do they distract you? Let us know in the comments section below.