Networks and distributors ask for Scenarist SCC. DeliverCC turns your lyric sheet into a broadcast-ready CEA-608 caption file: generate and edit the timing for free, pay one credit only when you download.
SCC stands for Scenarist Closed Caption, the caption format broadcast television has run on for decades. Inside the file is a stream of CEA-608 control codes and character pairs, each row anchored to a SMPTE timecode. When a network, distributor, or streaming service asks for "an SCC," "608 captions," or "Scenarist captions," this is the file they mean.
Unlike SRT or VTT, an SCC file is not readable text. Every caption is encoded as hex byte pairs that a broadcast encoder ingests directly, which is why hand-edited or loosely converted SCC files fail so often. The file either conforms to CEA-608 or the delivery bounces, usually days before an air date.
Caption tools are built for speech. Music is harder: the vocal sits inside a full mix, lines repeat, ad-libs and background vocals overlap, and pacing follows the song rather than sentence rhythm. Generic speech-to-text mistimes exactly the moments a quality-control pass checks.
DeliverCC starts from your lyric sheet instead of a transcription. The engine isolates the vocal from the mix, then force-aligns every word of your lyrics to the isolated vocal. The lyric sheet stays the source of truth for the words; the audio decides the timing. Intros, outros, ad-libs, and spoken parts belong on the sheet too, so they get captioned like everything else.
The SCC files DeliverCC produces are rendered through a broadcast-grade encoder and checked for the details automated ingest rejects:
MP3, WAV, MP4, MOV, and most other audio or video formats. Audio-only uploads process fastest.
Include the intros, ad-libs, and spoken parts you want captioned. The sheet is the source of truth.
Alignment typically lands in under a minute. Preview every caption against the waveform and nudge any line in the timeline editor. No charge yet.
One credit unlocks every export format for the project, SCC included, re-downloadable for 14 days.
CEA-608 is the original broadcast caption standard; CEA-708 is the digital standard, and it carries a 608 compatibility stream inside it. Music video delivery specs overwhelmingly ask for an SCC file, which is 608. Where a spec mentions 708, the broadcast facility typically up-converts from the same SCC you deliver. If your spec sheet explicitly requires a native 708 file, confirm with your distributor before delivery.
Non-drop-frame at 29.97 fps, written with colon separators. That is the form our conformance harness verifies. If a specific network requires drop-frame timecode, contact hello@delivercc.io with the spec and we will look at it.
The output conforms to CEA-608: pop-on control codes (EOC, ENM, EDM), rows capped at 32 characters, and clean hex encoding, verified through pycaption and an independent conformance harness. Final acceptance always sits with the network’s own ingest and editorial review, but spec conformance is the part you should never have to fight, and that part is checked before the file reaches you.
Nothing to generate. Upload, align, and edit the timing for free. Downloading costs one credit, which is $9 pay-as-you-go and less on a subscription. That single credit unlocks every export format for the project: SCC, SRT, VTT, Apple Music TTML, and the editor formats.
Yes. The timeline editor shows every caption block against the audio waveform. Drag or nudge any line, and the corrected timing is exactly what the SCC encodes. Editing is free; you only pay when you download.
CEA-608 uses a restricted Latin character set. English, Spanish, French, and most Western European languages encode cleanly. Scripts outside that set, such as Korean, Japanese, or Arabic, are not representable in a standard 608 stream; for those deliveries use SRT or VTT and confirm what your platform accepts.
Generate the alignment free, check every line in the editor, and download the SCC when it is right. One credit per project, every format included.