What is it?
When television or video screen viewers want extra information about what they are watching, they can utilize the closed captioning system. What closed captioning does is display an audio transcription of the media as it is being broadcasted or shown. Closed captions sometimes include parts of the program that aren't just speech, such as music or sound effects. The text of closed captions is only visible to those viewers who have the setting activated on their television set.
What are the laws for captioning?
There are many laws regarding closed captioning. In 1990, the Television Decoder Circuitry Act (101-431) became law and it states that technology should enable deaf and hearing impaired citizens to access television. Every television should have a screen that is at least 13 inches to show the text from closed captions. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (101-336) contains Title IV which deals with assistive technology. This law prevents disabled people from being discriminated against in state and local government, employment, commercial facilities, telecommunications, and transportation. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (104), Title III, sets rules for descriptions of videos and closed captioning.
What are stenocaptioners?
Closed captioning would not exist for live television broadcasts if it weren't for stenographers. Stenographers are reporters that specialize in captioning content in real-time, with the aid of a steno machine. Stenographers can achieve speeds of 250 words per minute or even higher.
Caption Types
Closed captions come in three types: pop-on, paint-on, and roll up. For pop-on captions, they appear as a complete block and can be anywhere on the screen. Paint-on captions move from left to right and character by character on the television screen. They are also quite rare. Finally, roll up captions appear at the screen bottom, one line at a time. The text goes from left to right and full lines scroll up to free up space for new ones.
In roll up captions for live programs, one will see a >> symbol to indicate a new speaker, and the >>> symbol is to signal the next story in the news. Occasionally >> will mean that only one person is speaking while >>> means more than one.
The FCC has created a rule that all new televisions that are produced should support closed captioning. This law says that any analog television should be able to display captioning and the screen should be a minimum of 13 inches. This law was later extended to digital televisions as well.
Live vs. Pre taped
For live (online) captioning, scrolling captions are created by trained stenographers and steno machines while the speaking is talking. Words that are unfamiliar simply cannot be edited or repeated. If needed, a phonetic spelling will be used although the expected accuracy is up around 98%. For pre taped (offline) captioning, program material is absorbed by the server, and trained captioners remember a line or two at a time and transcribe. Lastly the captions are reexamined with the film in real-time. Finally, the film is sent out to the broadcaster to be on television.
Why do captions not always match audio?
Occasionally, closed captioning does not match the audio exactly. For offline captioning the stenographers typically work at a rate of 180 words per minute to suit the average viewer. In live captions, if a speaker speaks at 240 or more words per minute, or if there are multiple speakers at once, it can become extremely difficult for a stenographer to transcribe every word. A caption can contain information for dialogue, narrative, music, or even sound effects. Lots of media along with television can be close captioned including movies, theater, radio, video games, telephones, DVDs, and plays.
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