ZDF began transmitting subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers through its digital ZDFvision service on 15 October 2007. Cable and satellite viewers could enable or disable subtitles with a standard set-top-box remote.
ZDF was subtitling about 130 programmes per month. The captions represented dialogue and relevant sounds while trying to preserve the original presentation.
Compatible receivers displayed subtitles automatically, with an option to disable them through the receiver menu. The service was German-only and was not available over DVB-T because of technical limitations.
ZDFvision used cable channel S32. Its satellite parameters were Astra 1H, transport stream 1079, original network ID 1, 11.95359 GHz, horizontal polarisation, symbol rate 27.5 and FEC 3/4.