Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Where, oh where have our captions gone?
Folks, this is Schoolmarm Jeanne and you know I have to weigh in on this since captions r us in my field. There are several things going on with the captions on Univision and other networks at the moment. For those who do not yet know me, I have been here most of the last two years until just recently when my schedule got nutty, and in my real life I am a school administrator at a school that exclusively serves students who are deaf or hard of hearing. I have had captioned television since 1980 when it first arrived on the scene, and never, ever turn off the captions; I’ve kept up with the issues nationally regarding captions—this is an especially hot topic at the moment since it appears that the current digital converter box is not especially compatible with the caption decoder chip in the older televisions that are not digital. So deaf folks trying to access the digital signal through the air are finding they cannot get their captions anymore.
At the end of this post, I have included the additional information on Spanish Language Programming directly from FCC fact sheet website—which are slightly different than the NIDCD information states (one of my favorite websites, by the way, and I’m glad to see you using it, Carlos). The NIDCD info is primarily about English language programming and they seem to have an error in the Spanish programming statement…..my apologies that I haven’t gotten adept at making the URL links work, you’ll have to cut and paste to get to the FCC fact sheet.
How closed captions are prepared: a human being (it’s not yet ready for the linguistic nuances of voice to digital transcribing yet, folks) must transcribe the audio track. Sometimes the captioner has a script, sometimes not. The person captioning can mix up sounds. Thus, in Spanish, the caption might read that the character is trying to “break the heaven (cielo)” when he or she was trying to “break the ice (hielo).” I actually saw this caption blooper on Yo Amo a Juan Q early in the program once and caught it only because a) I was recapping and b) I was very familiar with caption bloopers. There’s a Deaf online magazine called DeafDigest that has a caption blooper of the week every week!
Captioners are trained in programs like those for court reporters (sometimes the same programs). Each captioner must create his or her own personal “dictionary” of sound transcriptions that are merged to form the words heard—there is not a standard dictionary and I could not tell you why for the life of me.
This is why you sometimes see some funny things in live captioning, like when the President speaks, and then suddenly the mess becomes a full word. They work in words and syllable-like units. The initial dictionary must be about 10K words/syllable units before a trainee is ready to go out professionally and speed is an issue. Still, they hit the wrong keys in live captioning. This happens less in pre-recorded captions, but it happens (and may be the similar sounds, noted above). Melinama has noted in a previous thread that Univision is using live captioners. There is no way on earth they can be listening to even ten minutes of the rapid-fire dialogue we hear and be able to caption it all, especially if they have no script in front of them. I can’t type as fast as people talk, can you? I couldn’t take shorthand that fast and that accurately back in the days I did shorthand, either. Even with their shortcuts in their personal caption bank dictionaries, they can only catch part of what is being said live.
Watch a live captioned news special in either English or Spanish—the captions have all kinds of interesting differences from pre-recorded and pre-captioned programs. This is not a local provider problem, because it is occurring nationwide on Univision primarily, by the way. It’s definitely a network problem.
Back to the general captioning process, and pardon me for sidebars: the pre-recorded audio/video track and the caption track then get merged by the network so they match--theoretically, and when the local cable station plays back the video/audio for airing, the caption transmission equipment must be activated also. However, the equipment they are using for playback and airing locally must match the equipment on which the tracks were prepared and must have the same type of technology. It must merge and display all the tracks with appropriate timing, or your television screen comes up with a caption garble that you can’t resolve by turning it on and off, or pausing-restarting with something you have recorded, etc. (remember the old videotapes? They would get stretched and you’d have to manually “track” so they wouldn’t break up the picture and sound? This is similar but there is no correcting it at the user’s end). The video/audio track will be fine in the transmission from your local provider or national network, but the local provider’s captions will be terrible. (But as we have noted, this IS a problem at Univision at the moment. Others may be having it as well….see below). My local provider had problems with total garble on Univision when I came here five years ago. I complained, and they discovered they had outdated caption playback technology—they had to update it and totally replaced their caption playback technology/equipment.
Here’s what’s happening now:
First, some stations are now transitioning to digital transmission. Caption playback equipment is in your local cable service provider’s offices and may or may not be capable of handling digital---so far, the transmission has all been analog for the most part and the playback equipment handles analog captions. Since it’s happening nationwide, there may be other factors, however. In analog captioning, I noted that at least with my provider, there were always two characters for an accented vowel. They would caption “maás” for más. This was because the captioning equipment was displaying the “place marker” that gets put into some text programs for an accented character. There were other flaws like that, too. NOW, I am noticing they have cleaned that up. They are also slowing the captions (some of you have noted that, too) and stripped out some of the words—which is likely so they can begin building the transmission merge between captions and video/audio tracks.
These are just a couple of the factors I am fairly certain are influencing our captions. They remind me of the early days of captioning (1980-1985) when the captions said only half of what the characters did (and my deaf friends would look at me with the “what did he/she REALLY say?” look. But it was too late to interpret as the action moved on too fast. As captioners got more proficient and as the tracks got merged better without junk captions (garble that shows up when the tracks are mismatched), more of what the characters said was in the captions. Live captioners never get all the words, in my experience, that the speakers are saying unless there are large gaps in what the speakers say—as in some sports programming with occasional commenting. If Univision is hiring live captioners—they may be using trainees, which would account for some of the issues.
Finally, the FCC rules for Spanish language programming are different until 2010. (Also some of the rules for HDTV transmission are different, even if it is a form of digital). Have patience; the captions are actually clearer now than they have been since the Univision folks who’ve hired the captioners are changing their transmission format (analog to digital to match signals) although they are having growing pains and the captions are way slow. They have awhile to get it right, unfortunately for us, as the section below shows.
See below and thanks for your interest! (The entire following section is quoted from the FCC fact sheet website).
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html
“Different closed captioning schedules apply to new, pre-rule, and Spanish language programming.
"New" Programming
As of January 1, 2006, all “new” English language programming, defined as analog programming first published or exhibited on or after January 1, 1998, and digital programming first aired on or after July 1, 2002, must be captioned, with some exceptions.
"Pre-Rule" English Programming
Analog programming first shown before January 1, 1998, and digital programming first shown before July 1, 2002, are called “Pre-Rule Programming.” Pre-Rule Programming that is not exempt from the closed captioning rules must be captioned as follows:
* January 1, 2003, to December 31, 2007: 30 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
* January 1, 2008, and thereafter: 75 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
Spanish Language Programming
Because captioning is fairly new to Spanish language program providers, the FCC allows them a longer time to provide captioned programming. All Spanish language programming that was first shown after January 1, 1998, must be captioned by 2010 with some exemptions. The following schedule applies to Spanish language “new” and non-exempt programming, or programming shown after January 1, 1998:
* January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2006: 900 hours of programming per channel per quarter or all of the new, non-exempt Spanish language programming on that channel, whichever is less.
* January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2009: 1350 hours of programming per channel per quarter or all of the new, non-exempt Spanish language programming on that channel, whichever is less.
* January 1, 2010, and thereafter: 100 percent of all programming, with some exceptions.
For Spanish language “Pre-Rule Programming” (first shown before January 1, 1998) that is not exempt from the closed captioning rules, the following schedule applies:
* January 1, 2005, to December 31, 2011: 30 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
* January 1, 2012, and thereafter: 75 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
For more information on the FCC’s closed captioning rules and requirements, go to www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/caption.html.”
Jeanne
At the end of this post, I have included the additional information on Spanish Language Programming directly from FCC fact sheet website—which are slightly different than the NIDCD information states (one of my favorite websites, by the way, and I’m glad to see you using it, Carlos). The NIDCD info is primarily about English language programming and they seem to have an error in the Spanish programming statement…..my apologies that I haven’t gotten adept at making the URL links work, you’ll have to cut and paste to get to the FCC fact sheet.
How closed captions are prepared: a human being (it’s not yet ready for the linguistic nuances of voice to digital transcribing yet, folks) must transcribe the audio track. Sometimes the captioner has a script, sometimes not. The person captioning can mix up sounds. Thus, in Spanish, the caption might read that the character is trying to “break the heaven (cielo)” when he or she was trying to “break the ice (hielo).” I actually saw this caption blooper on Yo Amo a Juan Q early in the program once and caught it only because a) I was recapping and b) I was very familiar with caption bloopers. There’s a Deaf online magazine called DeafDigest that has a caption blooper of the week every week!
Captioners are trained in programs like those for court reporters (sometimes the same programs). Each captioner must create his or her own personal “dictionary” of sound transcriptions that are merged to form the words heard—there is not a standard dictionary and I could not tell you why for the life of me.
This is why you sometimes see some funny things in live captioning, like when the President speaks, and then suddenly the mess becomes a full word. They work in words and syllable-like units. The initial dictionary must be about 10K words/syllable units before a trainee is ready to go out professionally and speed is an issue. Still, they hit the wrong keys in live captioning. This happens less in pre-recorded captions, but it happens (and may be the similar sounds, noted above). Melinama has noted in a previous thread that Univision is using live captioners. There is no way on earth they can be listening to even ten minutes of the rapid-fire dialogue we hear and be able to caption it all, especially if they have no script in front of them. I can’t type as fast as people talk, can you? I couldn’t take shorthand that fast and that accurately back in the days I did shorthand, either. Even with their shortcuts in their personal caption bank dictionaries, they can only catch part of what is being said live.
Watch a live captioned news special in either English or Spanish—the captions have all kinds of interesting differences from pre-recorded and pre-captioned programs. This is not a local provider problem, because it is occurring nationwide on Univision primarily, by the way. It’s definitely a network problem.
Back to the general captioning process, and pardon me for sidebars: the pre-recorded audio/video track and the caption track then get merged by the network so they match--theoretically, and when the local cable station plays back the video/audio for airing, the caption transmission equipment must be activated also. However, the equipment they are using for playback and airing locally must match the equipment on which the tracks were prepared and must have the same type of technology. It must merge and display all the tracks with appropriate timing, or your television screen comes up with a caption garble that you can’t resolve by turning it on and off, or pausing-restarting with something you have recorded, etc. (remember the old videotapes? They would get stretched and you’d have to manually “track” so they wouldn’t break up the picture and sound? This is similar but there is no correcting it at the user’s end). The video/audio track will be fine in the transmission from your local provider or national network, but the local provider’s captions will be terrible. (But as we have noted, this IS a problem at Univision at the moment. Others may be having it as well….see below). My local provider had problems with total garble on Univision when I came here five years ago. I complained, and they discovered they had outdated caption playback technology—they had to update it and totally replaced their caption playback technology/equipment.
Here’s what’s happening now:
First, some stations are now transitioning to digital transmission. Caption playback equipment is in your local cable service provider’s offices and may or may not be capable of handling digital---so far, the transmission has all been analog for the most part and the playback equipment handles analog captions. Since it’s happening nationwide, there may be other factors, however. In analog captioning, I noted that at least with my provider, there were always two characters for an accented vowel. They would caption “maás” for más. This was because the captioning equipment was displaying the “place marker” that gets put into some text programs for an accented character. There were other flaws like that, too. NOW, I am noticing they have cleaned that up. They are also slowing the captions (some of you have noted that, too) and stripped out some of the words—which is likely so they can begin building the transmission merge between captions and video/audio tracks.
These are just a couple of the factors I am fairly certain are influencing our captions. They remind me of the early days of captioning (1980-1985) when the captions said only half of what the characters did (and my deaf friends would look at me with the “what did he/she REALLY say?” look. But it was too late to interpret as the action moved on too fast. As captioners got more proficient and as the tracks got merged better without junk captions (garble that shows up when the tracks are mismatched), more of what the characters said was in the captions. Live captioners never get all the words, in my experience, that the speakers are saying unless there are large gaps in what the speakers say—as in some sports programming with occasional commenting. If Univision is hiring live captioners—they may be using trainees, which would account for some of the issues.
Finally, the FCC rules for Spanish language programming are different until 2010. (Also some of the rules for HDTV transmission are different, even if it is a form of digital). Have patience; the captions are actually clearer now than they have been since the Univision folks who’ve hired the captioners are changing their transmission format (analog to digital to match signals) although they are having growing pains and the captions are way slow. They have awhile to get it right, unfortunately for us, as the section below shows.
See below and thanks for your interest! (The entire following section is quoted from the FCC fact sheet website).
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html
“Different closed captioning schedules apply to new, pre-rule, and Spanish language programming.
"New" Programming
As of January 1, 2006, all “new” English language programming, defined as analog programming first published or exhibited on or after January 1, 1998, and digital programming first aired on or after July 1, 2002, must be captioned, with some exceptions.
"Pre-Rule" English Programming
Analog programming first shown before January 1, 1998, and digital programming first shown before July 1, 2002, are called “Pre-Rule Programming.” Pre-Rule Programming that is not exempt from the closed captioning rules must be captioned as follows:
* January 1, 2003, to December 31, 2007: 30 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
* January 1, 2008, and thereafter: 75 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
Spanish Language Programming
Because captioning is fairly new to Spanish language program providers, the FCC allows them a longer time to provide captioned programming. All Spanish language programming that was first shown after January 1, 1998, must be captioned by 2010 with some exemptions. The following schedule applies to Spanish language “new” and non-exempt programming, or programming shown after January 1, 1998:
* January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2006: 900 hours of programming per channel per quarter or all of the new, non-exempt Spanish language programming on that channel, whichever is less.
* January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2009: 1350 hours of programming per channel per quarter or all of the new, non-exempt Spanish language programming on that channel, whichever is less.
* January 1, 2010, and thereafter: 100 percent of all programming, with some exceptions.
For Spanish language “Pre-Rule Programming” (first shown before January 1, 1998) that is not exempt from the closed captioning rules, the following schedule applies:
* January 1, 2005, to December 31, 2011: 30 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
* January 1, 2012, and thereafter: 75 percent of programming per channel per quarter.
For more information on the FCC’s closed captioning rules and requirements, go to www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/caption.html.”
Jeanne
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This is so, so fascinating, Jeanne, thank you SO MUCH. Unfortunately, it sounds like it may be a very long time until the captions "work" again. Mine, on Time Warner Cable, haven't worked for months, while others just lost them on March 16. TWC shows no interest at all in this problem. Let's keep each other posted, shall we?
You're welcome, Melinama, and oh, wow, Melinama--that's awful! So you have the problems both at TWC AND Univision simultaneously. Yep, you're right, it could be months. Indeed, we'll keep in touch.
Captions not only are good for folks who are learning Spanish, and those who are deaf or hard of hearing, but they are good for adults who are Spanish speakers and never learned to read their own native language well. We need to remind all the stations of the multiple audiences they can reach.
Carlos hit the nail on the head, though--it's the law, and 2010 is not that far off.
Jeanne
Jeanne
Captions not only are good for folks who are learning Spanish, and those who are deaf or hard of hearing, but they are good for adults who are Spanish speakers and never learned to read their own native language well. We need to remind all the stations of the multiple audiences they can reach.
Carlos hit the nail on the head, though--it's the law, and 2010 is not that far off.
Jeanne
Jeanne
Ooops, sorry for the double name. It's been a while since I was here and I'm out of practice.
;-)
Jeanne
;-)
Jeanne
Thanks Jeanne. We are blessed to have your expertise. At least, understanding the problem, makes it a little less frustrating. Being a live captioner sounds about as stressful as being an air traffic controller ( well, alright, NOT a matter of life and death...but still....stressful)
SchoolMarm to the rescue! Thanks Jeanne for giving us this clear excellent description of our predicament.
I hope you and Melinama will keep us all in the loop as the solution develops. Also if you can think how to express the effects of this loss of communication tools to the networks and the cable/satellite carriers we can form a band of letter writers. At least it would be really helpful for the Univision people who can help to read your posting. Maybe Melinama will alert her contact to be sure to read it and pass it up the chain to the appropriate office. I especially appreciate how you express the wide variety of people that need this tool to function properly.
I hope you and Melinama will keep us all in the loop as the solution develops. Also if you can think how to express the effects of this loss of communication tools to the networks and the cable/satellite carriers we can form a band of letter writers. At least it would be really helpful for the Univision people who can help to read your posting. Maybe Melinama will alert her contact to be sure to read it and pass it up the chain to the appropriate office. I especially appreciate how you express the wide variety of people that need this tool to function properly.
Thanks, Julie, Judy, Cheryl! I will try to think of some way to say it in fewer words to clarify the need. But the bottom line is still is: it's the law, ultimately. We may need to suffer a while as they get the analog to digital issues ironed out--which seem to be affecting caption transmission far more than audio/video at the moment.
Jeanne
Jeanne
Thanks, Schoolmarm, for the detailed explanation. I'm barely able to process all the information, but I think you have explained why the one TV we have, that has a built-in digital tuner, has NO captions on Univision, while the analog Univision signal we get on our cable TVs (no digital boxes, just the cable to the TV) has the currently-crummy captions.
Thanks, Doris, and yep, that would be why the televisions are currently not getting captions at all or getting crummy captions, most likely. I feel like we're back in the 1980s with the captions. Deja vu. And it wasn't fun then because I was married to a deaf guy and did a lot of interpreting when shows he liked were on, because the captions were not there for those shows or were garbled. It took until closer to 1990 when all the networks had most of their programming CC and clean captions appeared most of the time. sigh.
Jeanne
Jeanne
Thanks, Jeanne, for sharing that information. Today, I told my students to watch TV and turn on the English captions to help improve their listening comprehension in English . Some have more trouble understanding English than speaking . Now. I'll have to warn them that there are some problems that have to be sorted out. I miss your posts, Jeanne.
Permalink posted by 
: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:08:00 PM EDT
: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:08:00 PM EDT
Thanks Jeanne!!! I'm so glad it's not just me. I've had wacked captions for a few weeks now and I haven't been around the blog much so wasn't sure if it was local or national. Sounds national indeed. Let us know if we can do anything to help correct this service which is so depended on by folks who really need it. We miss you indeed!!!
Schoolmarm, you are such a giving person to share your knowledge with us, especially since you are so unbelievably busy right now. Thank you for taking the time to explain this rather complex subject so clearly. During the time I've recapped for Caray Caray one or two of us have occasionally had CC problems, but recently we have all been tortured by these crazy closed captions. Thanks for weighing in, we are so very lucky to have you in the gang.
This was a LOT of work on your part, Jeanne. Thank you for being so caring!
It is impossible for a person to catch every single word of something live, no matter how fast or well s/he types, for sure. And I'm not surprised this analog to digital phase is making things worse.
Again--muchas gracias, con dulce.
It is impossible for a person to catch every single word of something live, no matter how fast or well s/he types, for sure. And I'm not surprised this analog to digital phase is making things worse.
Again--muchas gracias, con dulce.
Permalink posted by : Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 5:41:00 AM EDT
: Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 5:41:00 AM EDT
Thanks, Susanlynn, Sylvia, Kris and Stephe! I am hopeful that it will all be resolved soon. Captions are addicting for me; I haven't been able to watch television without them for nearly 30 years even though I hear fine. When the captions don't match the speaker and the offstage sound (like when they have music notes to indicate music, or there's a note that someone's knocking at the door), it makes me nuts just like when the interpreter's voicing of a deaf person is off, way behind, or dead wrong. I can't shut one or the other off mentally. It's a tragic character flaw, I reckon.
Susanlynn, that's a good point--your students need to know that the closed captions are really helpful but not so much if they aren't verbatim and on track with the spoken word. By the way, if you ever watch a program like Sesame Street or another children's program, you may see words cut out and the captions way simplified compared to the actual voices. There's a real art to captioning for the specific audience.
Another thought from last night late: these captioners are all from within the US, although the caption schools may be training foreign individuals (remember that the Decoder Chip Act of 1993 is a US law, and other nations may have their versions, but not all nations even have this legislation and technology). Different captioners have differing levels of language facility and captioning skill. That all affects how the captions appear to us. I have often wondered who they use to do the Spanish captions in US television; are they US-based? Did they get trained in the US? Some day I'll retire and go hunt down answers to my pressing questions. ;-)
Jeanne
Susanlynn, that's a good point--your students need to know that the closed captions are really helpful but not so much if they aren't verbatim and on track with the spoken word. By the way, if you ever watch a program like Sesame Street or another children's program, you may see words cut out and the captions way simplified compared to the actual voices. There's a real art to captioning for the specific audience.
Another thought from last night late: these captioners are all from within the US, although the caption schools may be training foreign individuals (remember that the Decoder Chip Act of 1993 is a US law, and other nations may have their versions, but not all nations even have this legislation and technology). Different captioners have differing levels of language facility and captioning skill. That all affects how the captions appear to us. I have often wondered who they use to do the Spanish captions in US television; are they US-based? Did they get trained in the US? Some day I'll retire and go hunt down answers to my pressing questions. ;-)
Jeanne
Thank you Jeanne, so very much! And you are SO intuitive you suspected myself and others were trying to pause and restart and syncronize with our low tech equipment. Now I know I can't "fix" it by buying new stuff either.
I meet the most amazing people on this Blog. Thank you again.
I meet the most amazing people on this Blog. Thank you again.
Thanks a lot,Jean. I've always been fascinated about the source of closed captions, and now that I am both hearing impaired and Spanish impaired, I have 2 dogs in this fight. I would think that if our friends at Univision fully appreciated the impact of reliable CCs, they would Knock themselves out to provide and tout them. I have informed a # of my Spanish
speaking pts. about them and found them to be totally unaware of the existence of CCs. A # of my Dr. friends have TVs in their waiting rooms tuned to cable news with the the sound off and CCs on.(My own pts. seem to prefer 3mo. old Times and Newsweeks.) Last night I watched Betty la Fea (strangely familiar) on Telefutura , and it was a real treat. With the sound, well-timed CCs, and moving lips, I felt right at home with the machinegun dialog of the Columbianos.
Jean,it's so good to hear from you again. Thanks for joining us in our quest.
Power to the people!
¡Sí se puede!
Carlos
speaking pts. about them and found them to be totally unaware of the existence of CCs. A # of my Dr. friends have TVs in their waiting rooms tuned to cable news with the the sound off and CCs on.(My own pts. seem to prefer 3mo. old Times and Newsweeks.) Last night I watched Betty la Fea (strangely familiar) on Telefutura , and it was a real treat. With the sound, well-timed CCs, and moving lips, I felt right at home with the machinegun dialog of the Columbianos.
Jean,it's so good to hear from you again. Thanks for joining us in our quest.
Power to the people!
¡Sí se puede!
Carlos
Carlos, it is interesting that Betty la Fea has good captions--I'm going to watch that myself tonight to check. Telefutura is a Univision affiliate, but Betty la Fea is an old show, so maybe they are using the old existing captions.
Thanks, Carlos! I'm glad to pop in because I miss y'all!
I just talked to a colleague here who runs a deaf services and advocacy agency. She said TLC had similar caption problems recently. It seems to be the smaller networks to us. She also noted what I had said--it looks like they are using trainees to caption and "practice" their skills, so they are less experienced and likely to be slow with lots of lag time and dropping parts of the dialogue--this also happens with interpreters for the deaf who are less experienced. The lag time may be very long while they process entire paragraphs mentally to translate. It makes hearing folks who know ASL fluently nuts to hear and see the discrepancy.
Jeanne
I just talked to a colleague here who runs a deaf services and advocacy agency. She said TLC had similar caption problems recently. It seems to be the smaller networks to us. She also noted what I had said--it looks like they are using trainees to caption and "practice" their skills, so they are less experienced and likely to be slow with lots of lag time and dropping parts of the dialogue--this also happens with interpreters for the deaf who are less experienced. The lag time may be very long while they process entire paragraphs mentally to translate. It makes hearing folks who know ASL fluently nuts to hear and see the discrepancy.
Jeanne
Jeanne (sorry about the spelling earlier),I'm just a simple-minded country doctor, but it seems to me that if an Univision exec would just take a seat one evening and watch his product(TN) with CCs and the understanding of how important they are to some of their customers(us), he would arrange to remedy the problem right away. Maybe they need to do a million dollar study to access the impact of CCs on their viewers. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath.
Carlos
Carlos
Schoolmarm Jeanne: Thanks for all the detailed information. Technically, most of it was above my head, but, now I understand the gist of what is happening.
At least now I don't feel so helpless. My captions stay on almost all of the time. I use them so that I don't have to keep the volume up.
At least now I don't feel so helpless. My captions stay on almost all of the time. I use them so that I don't have to keep the volume up.
Jeanne, you are fabulous to do all this work for us. I watched without captions because I was too dumb to realize I even had them for about 3 years. This meant that I backed up and repeated a lot of dialog until I understood.
My Spanish is better now than then, and I really can do without them. But I miss them. It's true that once you get used to seeing the words in real time, it's such a great benefit, especially since some of the actors don't have the world's best diction. Sometimes I pause the screen of the DVR'd program and run to my dictionary to look up a new word.
I think Mañana es para Siempre is marginally better this week than last, although it's hard to gauge. I had them off most of last week in sheer frustration. Then I turned them back on this week, but don't really depend on them.
I'm assuming everyone watches the captions in Spanish. Telemundo used to have Spanish on CC1 and English on CC2, I think. My TV got the English for a short time, but then it went away.
My Spanish is better now than then, and I really can do without them. But I miss them. It's true that once you get used to seeing the words in real time, it's such a great benefit, especially since some of the actors don't have the world's best diction. Sometimes I pause the screen of the DVR'd program and run to my dictionary to look up a new word.
I think Mañana es para Siempre is marginally better this week than last, although it's hard to gauge. I had them off most of last week in sheer frustration. Then I turned them back on this week, but don't really depend on them.
I'm assuming everyone watches the captions in Spanish. Telemundo used to have Spanish on CC1 and English on CC2, I think. My TV got the English for a short time, but then it went away.
Permalink posted by : Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 1:54:00 PM EDT
: Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 1:54:00 PM EDT
Some stations put their alternative captions on CC3 instead of CC2, but not all TVs have CC3. Just FYI, it doesn't hurt to look on CC3 once in a while if you have it. (I never see anything there lately, but if you remember the presidential primary debates on Univision last year, they captioned 'em in English on CC3.)
I've noticed that the captions on our shows usually start off pretty good but get slower and less complete as the hour goes on. That could just be fatigue setting in. I can relate. When I was recapping, the closer I got to the end of the episode, the slower I got and the easier it was to miss things.
I've noticed that the captions on our shows usually start off pretty good but get slower and less complete as the hour goes on. That could just be fatigue setting in. I can relate. When I was recapping, the closer I got to the end of the episode, the slower I got and the easier it was to miss things.
Jeanne, thanks for providing that explanation. Understanding what's going on helps my frustration, although the longing for good CCs is still there.
La Paloma
La Paloma
Permalink posted by : Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 4:10:00 PM EDT
: Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 4:10:00 PM EDT
When we had a similar problem many years ago, and I was able to talk with an Univision engineer, I learned (apart from what the problem was) that I was (according to him) the only person who had complained - although the forums had been full of complaints for months.
May I suggest that everybody affected call their local Univision station and ask to talk to an engineer. Also call Univision and make the same request. And, for the truly dedicated, try writing old-fashioned paper letters.
Again, based on my experience, the engineering staff will need to know the exact nature of the problem (non-existent, garbled, here-today-gone-tomorrow, all novelas, just some), your local station, cable or satellite provider, etc. and whether the problem is true only for Univision or for all your Spanish channels - and whether CC is working OK on your English channels.
May I suggest that everybody affected call their local Univision station and ask to talk to an engineer. Also call Univision and make the same request. And, for the truly dedicated, try writing old-fashioned paper letters.
Again, based on my experience, the engineering staff will need to know the exact nature of the problem (non-existent, garbled, here-today-gone-tomorrow, all novelas, just some), your local station, cable or satellite provider, etc. and whether the problem is true only for Univision or for all your Spanish channels - and whether CC is working OK on your English channels.
Permalink posted by : Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:13:00 PM EDT
: Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:13:00 PM EDT
Thanks Anon. As point of reference, I'm watching a hockey game right now, live, and the CCs are perfect with about a 3 second delay. Interesting...
novelera.
I agree, they seem a BIT better this week for me, too. I have Directv. I'm at least getting complete sentences this week, but there is still an annoying delay with the captions and they leave a lot of stuff off. Like you, I just turned them off last week and when I turned them on again last night they seemed better. So, I hope this means progress is being made. Mine were perfect until about two weeks ago.
I agree, they seem a BIT better this week for me, too. I have Directv. I'm at least getting complete sentences this week, but there is still an annoying delay with the captions and they leave a lot of stuff off. Like you, I just turned them off last week and when I turned them on again last night they seemed better. So, I hope this means progress is being made. Mine were perfect until about two weeks ago.
Permalink posted by : Friday, March 27, 2009 at 12:08:00 AM EDT
: Friday, March 27, 2009 at 12:08:00 AM EDT
Hello Jeanne! thank you for the detailed report on the closed captions. I do know that for the past five years or so, AIB (American Institute of Business) here in Des Moines has been training students to do closed captioning along with the court reporting degrees. I tried to do the court reporting but failed miserably - I'm a slow typist and to be a court reporter a student has to type 250 words a minute or more.
I saw a report some time ago about this program - apparently there are two ways to do closed captions: typing on the court reporter machine and by spoken word.
Jody :)
I saw a report some time ago about this program - apparently there are two ways to do closed captions: typing on the court reporter machine and by spoken word.
Jody :)
I sent a message to Univision asking for help with the CCs. It was easy and painless. Some of you might like to give it a shot.
Free Lil1!
Carlos
Free Lil1!
Carlos
Thanks, everyone for comments and discussion! Wow!
Jody, I knew you'd pick up right away on what I meant--AIB! They're one of the main caption schools in the country.
Anon, this problem is national, so it's appropriate to alert your cable provider first as you suggested. Still, we'll all have to contact Univision and thanks to Melinama and Carlos for giving us the resource to do it.
Jeanne
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Jody, I knew you'd pick up right away on what I meant--AIB! They're one of the main caption schools in the country.
Anon, this problem is national, so it's appropriate to alert your cable provider first as you suggested. Still, we'll all have to contact Univision and thanks to Melinama and Carlos for giving us the resource to do it.
Jeanne
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