Caray, Caray!

I'm trying to put pressure on you recappers to send in your pictures, is it working? If you sent me a picture and it's not up, I didn't get it, please re-send. If you didn't send, PLEASE SEND YOUR PICTURE TO ME at caray@mappamundi.com!!!

Labels: announcements

If you want to see what our wonderful recappers Vivi and Hombre de Misterio look like, they've joined our sidebar. Other recappers without pictures - please send to me at caray@mappamundi.com!!!

Labels: announcements

We have a TON of recappers who have never sent me a picture. I want your pictures for the sidebar! Please? Email them to me at caray@mappamundi.com. PLEASE!

Labels: announcements

Hello all,

It's come to my attention that some of our beloved readers feel an ungovernable urge to gossip about our telenovela actors' private lives, share spoilers, etc.

I am now providing you an OUTLET for these urges! In the left sidebar you will see three boxes with links leading you to the three squidoo pages I've written on telenovelas. If you want to go visit there you can say whatever you like in the comments as long as it isn't obscene. Have at it!

Labels: announcements

Hello friends,

You know how I don't allow gossip and speculation about actors' private lives here at Caray, Caray!? Well, I just put up a page at squidoo, about William Levy, which is just for the sort of thing I don't allow here. Want to see?

About William Levy, Univision star.

Please leave a comment in the guest book if you take a look!

UPDATE: there is a little bug at Squidoo this morning. I have approved the first two comments and I can see them when I edit but they're not appearing on the published lens. Don't let that discourage you, this has happened before and they all show up eventually!

Labels: announcements, sortilegio, stars

Hi, blog mom here saying - thanks all you guys - you are champs. All the recappers here at Caray, Caray are giving their time for free and what an amazing community we've created. I'm very grateful for you all. MEPS was a pretty good ride. Too bad Fernanda couldn't have a prettier wedding dress after all that waiting.

REMINDER: Sortilegio starts tomorrow. I'd still like another volunteer to step up and take at least half the Mondays (I'd rather not have an every-week slot...)

Melinama (aka Chapel Hill Fiddler)

Labels: announcements, manana, recappers-needed

El GRito!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tambien Felicidades a Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua y Chile por su independencia!!!

Labels: announcements

Oh wonderful readers,

You poured out so much great stuff it was too much for one lens, so I made another one, and if there's more, I can make yet another! Here's the second:

Telenovela Fun
The first one:
Telenovelas: a fun, painless way to learn Spanish

(On each lens, the link to the other one is just above the guestbook.)

If you want attribution on something I forgot, let me know. I also may have mis-translated some dichos.

Also, I vaguely remember there was some great discussion on "what is a naco" but I don't remember where. Anybody?

I think squidoo may turn out to be a wonderful place to store peoples lists of interesting stuff that gets lost here at the blog now that it is so huge.

Labels: announcements, telenovelas

Hi all, I have become a Squidoo addict and just put together the beginning of a "lens" on telenovelas. I've been at this so long I've lost most of my notes so I'm asking if you'd mind helping, I'm looking for more of the following:

• MOST needed as I've lost all my lists: The great Spanish proverbs and catch phrases we've learned through the novelas (like the ones decorating this page);
  
• Phrases commonly heard in novelas, like No puede ser! and Qué haces aqui?;
  
• Delicious deaths of telenovela villains (I have a good stock thanks to the last time I asked this question, but there are more of you now!)
  
• Things which always happen (as Carlos just pointed out, COMA and AMNESIA for instance - and there's baby-switching of course). I have a goodly number of those, but there's always room for more...

Could you have a look over there and see what springs to mind? You can leave your ideas here in the comments on THIS post so everybody can enjoy them. Thank you so much! Here's the link:

Telenovelas: a fun, painless way to learn Spanish

.

Labels: announcements, telenovelas

Would You Like to See the Captions on Internet-Based Broadcasts, Like Univision website Video Clips?

If you are a Closed Caption user, as many here on C2 are, I have compiled information below about a new bill in Congress right now that will increase the captions on the internet broadcasts we watch. I apologize for any redundancies and unclear information—I didn’t write the items but compiled them from about three sources, which I cite for clarity. The main issue here is that people with disabilities cannot access some aspects of the internet currently—captions for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing in particular, and audio description for individuals with visual impairments. You can help change that!

What I take all this information below to mean is that commercial items on the internet would have to be captioned (like anything the commercial television networks put on the internet, which I can't get because I use Mac, but so be it). I don’t know if it means what typical consumers post, such as on youtube, because it's not clear. The general idea is, though, if the program was broadcast with captions on television then the same captions must be available when you view the program on the internet. For those of us who use the captions to understand better, this would be a great help!

Also, note that there are clauses in the bill that say “English language programs” that have been previously broadcast with captions must be delivered the same way on the internet. I think it does not clarify Spanish programming, though I haven’t read through the entire bill. Remember that the FCC has given a grace period for Spanish language programming in the US, since that is a newer format from the FCC caption law perspective. So, if you write your Congressional delegation members, urge them to adopt the bill both for English language and Spanish language programming.

The following information is from Jamie Berke and Robert Goodwin, who are deaf activists supporting the bill for deaf consumers. More information from other sources follows theirs. My DEEP apologies for not knowing how to make hyperlinks, so you’ll have to cut and paste to access the websites until I can consult with a fellow recapper who does it all the time and I’ll fix them this weekend.

HR3101 Captioning Bill

The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act was introduced in Congress on June 26, 2009. This Act, among other things, will require captioning on the Internet, and video description on the Internet for the blind and visually impaired. We need help to get this bill passed because it is not easy to get a bill through Congress!

Here is what I suggest: perhaps post this to your announcement wall or board(s) where clients meet for job searches and/or classes as well as newsletters and websites. They can use https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml to contact Representatives. We also need a similar bill introduced in the Senate, so use http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm to contact Senators. Representatives should be asked to cosponsor the bill, and Senators should be asked to introduce a similar bill.

In addition, because in numbers there is strength, in addition to telling your clients about the bill and encouraging them to write their Representatives and Senators, you can also tell them about Caption Action 2, a grassroots Facebook effort to get this bill passed. Caption Action 2 is at http://www.causes.com/captionaction2 . We also have a blog, http://captionaction2.blogspot.com/ , where you can download a PDF of the bill and see a countdown counter showing how much time we have left. In addition, the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT, at http://www.coataccess.org) is working hard to get the bill passed. In fact, we only have until January 2011 to get this bill passed. After that, this bill will die.

We really need help. Most bills do not make it out of committee, and last year that is what happened to a similar bill. This year we have a second chance, and we might not get a third chance.

Thank you, in advance, for your help! This bill is really to guarantee the deaf and blind kids an accessible future on the Internet!

Jamie Berke and Robert Goodwin
Leaders, Caption Action 2

Schoolmarm Jeanne back again. Here is additional information from a couple of more websites:

Washington Watch says that “H.R. 3101 would ensure that individuals with disabilities have access to emerging Internet Protocol-based communication and video programming technologies in the 21st Century. “ The website is:

http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_3101.html

From “Day in Washington,” there is a summary of what the bill is supposed to do:

http://dayinwashington.com/?p=290

There has been significant legislation and regulation in the past to address access issues for people with disabilities to communications systems such as the telephone and television. Specifically, Section 255 of the Communications Act (47 U.S.C. §225) requires telecommunications providers and manufacturers to make their services and equipment accessible to and usable by people with disabilities if readily achievable. And Section 713 of the Communications Act (47 U.S.C. §613) which requires that video programming distributors provide closed captioning on 100 percent of new English video programming.

The problem? Today, there are web-based video services that offer television programs, movies, and web clips distributed over the Internet, but most of them do not provide closed captioning, even when the programming previously was captioned. In addition, cell phones and other mobile devices are being used more and more for communication and even entertainment. The legislation that offered protections for people with disabilities to ensure access does not cover new technologies. VoiIP and IP-based technologies are not always defined as being a telecommunications service. What that means is that they don’t fall under the access requirements in the Communications Act, and so would not be required to provide closed captions or video description.

Let me give you an example of how the law is out-of-date…the telephone. Federal law requires phones over the regular public telephone network to be hearing aid compatible. But, it is not clear whether this requirement carries over to smart phones used for communication over the Internet

So what does the bill do:

1. H.R. 3101 would require that mobile and other Internet-based telecommunications devices have accessible user interfaces, and offer people with disabilities use of a full range of text messaging and other popular services that are currently largely inaccessible;

2. Restore the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) modest video description rules and grant them the authority to expand such regulations, and require emergency announcements and similar information to be accessible to people with disabilities through audible presentation of on-screen alerts,

4. Ensure that video programming offered via the Internet will be described, and call for all devices that receive and playback video programming to employ accessible user interfaces and allow ready access to description; and

5. Strengthen consumers’ ability to enforce their rights to Communications and video accessibility through the establishment of a clearinghouse of information about service and equipment accessibility and usability, a meaningful FCC complaint process that holds industry accountable for their accessibility obligations, and judicial review of FCC action to ensure the Commission’s own accountability.

In this new era of electronic and internet-based communications, it is critical that the disability access requirements in telecommunications legislation continue to actually impact what communications systems people are actually using. All you have to do is look around a hearing room to see how prevalent mobile and web-based technology is. It is visible on buses and trains, in stores and on the streets; people are constantly using hand-held electronic devices to communicate, to access information, to interact with others and to engage in the larger world around them. The Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act offers the best opportunity to expand current law and requirements to allow that same access for people with disabilities as we move to a much more digital, and mobile future.

(End of quoted material)

Schoolmarm Jeanne back for the last time. You can make a difference by writing to your Congressional delegation members and urging them to vote in favor of this access bill. It will help us, but it will help deaf and hard of hearing people, blind people and people with low vision, more than it will even help us! Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Jeanne

p.s. I watch a couple of TNs but rarely have time to check in with the blog, ¡discúlpenme, mis queridos/as amigos/as!

Labels: announcements

Somebody posted big fat ugly spoilers on the MEPS page last night. I've erased them but this is a reminder to all - you are NOT allowed to tell what's happening after the episode that's currently running. Speculation is ok but no wrecking the surprise for other people. So you looked ahead on YouTube - this does NOT make you special or entitle you to spill the beans.

And, bloggers - since I'll be away for three weeks you need to be especially vigilant about deleting any offending comments on your own posts. If you find there's a problem that needs my attention, please send me a direct email as I won't be able to monitor the computer regularly.

Thanks all! Enjoy the rest of July!

Labels: announcements, manana

Hi everybody,

I've been pretty scarce these last few weeks, sorry. It's because I've been trying to boost my bands' web presence to try and drum up some wedding business. With the economy the way it is, sadly, many brides are arriving at their ceremonies and receptions with - iPods! Sigh.

So anyway, one of the things I've been doing is recording little snippets of wedding songs and, even though I'll probably never do a Hispanic wedding because I'm such a gringo, I love the Mexican/Spanish love songs and have put a few of them on my new blog - including the one Alma asked for, "Un Rinconcito del Cielo." You can have a listen:

Wedding songs in Spanish.

Let me know what you think!

I'll be recapping MEPS tomorrow...

Labels: announcements

Hi all,

Carlos appended this link to his last comment, and we should all send them emails:

http://www.univision.net/corp/es/contact.jsp

I'd say, don't be intimidated that the form is in Spanish, you can fill it in using English! They should know there are a lot of us!

Thank you Carlos!

Labels: announcements

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

Labels: announcements

THANK YOU CARLOS for providing this information. Now, what to do about it?

From his link at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders:

The law

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 requires that businesses and public accommodations ensure that disabled individuals are not excluded from or denied services because of the absence of auxiliary aids. Captions are considered one type of auxiliary aid.

Since the passage of the ADA, the use of captioning has expanded. Entertainment, educational, informational, and training materials are captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences at the time they are produced and distributed.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt rules requiring closed captioning of most television programming.

Captions and the FCC

The FCC rules on closed captioning became effective January 1, 1998. They require people or companies that distribute television programs directly to home viewers to make sure those programs are captioned.

Labels: announcements

Hi all,
Since Ferro's post last Friday - during which we tentatively decided the disastrous meltdown of the Univision subtitles started on March 16 - I've been in touch with a few people at Univision and one of our other recappers who "knows somebody" there has done the same.

There is a possibility this problem results from a cost-cutting measure at Univision: that they stopped paying for pre-recorded captions and have been trying to get by with live captioners. We are hoping they'll realize what they're offering now is utterly unusable and will go back to the previous system. In the mean time, I'll try to keep you posted.

Labels: announcements

I thought since we are linked from Univision now, a post devoted to the messed up captions might be seen by somebody. I get my recap updates through the bloglines.com site, today I looked at the Caray Caray updates, every single one started with "my captions are still missing/messed up/30 seconds behind." I'm having the same problem as well, so this isn't connected to just one cable company or one part of the country, it has to be from the network.

Univision - what's going on with the captions? Thank you!

Labels: announcements

Hi everybody,

Is that cool or what? Maria Milligan at Univision wrote me and said she had added us to this page of links, and asked if I'd link back to Univision, so I did (see bottom of left sidebar).

Hah!

Labels: announcements

Hello all,

If you're interested you can click the tiny icon at the bottom of the left column and see our statistics - as of right now, there have actually been more than 607,000 visits because I had to reset the counter in March of 2007. At the moment we average 696 visits per day.

Hello everybody!

Melinama

Labels: announcements

Labels: announcements, Fuego, Tontas