To see Jesus some people need a little boost, just like Zacchaeus. He was a short, little man and when Jesus came into town, Zacchaeus could only see him by climbing up a sycamore tree. What kind of “trees” do you need to plant to help your congregation see Jesus?
The first “tree to plant” is closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing members of your church.
Here’s one church’s story:
I cried all the way through the service today. It was the first day since 1993 that I had the opportunity to “hear” a sermon.
These are the words of a former music minister gone deaf. In the process of four days, the illness completely took his hearing and since then has missed every sermon… until now.
Church sermons are being “heard” by the deaf at Idlewild Baptist Church with the implementation of closed captioning.
Senior Pastor Ken Whitten of Idlewild Church realized that members of his congregation were sitting in silence. Pastor Whitten’s compassion for his special needs church members led him to search for a solution. Aberdeen Captioning stepped in to help.
Many churches have relied on using a sign language interpreter on stage during church services, in order to assist deaf members of the congregation. The issue with sign language alone is that it is typically only understood by those with a lifelong hearing impairment, leaving the rest of the deaf and hard of hearing community missing the message.
Since 2011, two Sunday morning services at Idlewild have been closed captioned. Jimmy Moore, Minister of Technical Ministries at Idlewild, discussed their ministry’s decision to implement closed captioning in addition to having a sign language interpreter. Moore notes, “There are some folks here that have adult onset of total hearing loss. We have a Senior Pastor with a primary spiritual gift of mercy (he loves people). These people matter!”
After the initial service, Pastor Whitten had this message for Aberdeen Captioning: “Thanks Team for making yesterday memorable for so many. It's just the beginning, but it would have never launched without you and your heart and hard work. You're a blessing to labor with. I could have also talked about a lady who cried at 9:30 too. They are out there. One lady came to see me at the Pastor's reception and told me she's telling all her friends. Get ready. It's meeting a need.”
Closed captioning should not just be an afterthought. It is not just words on a screen to meet the federal mandate. It is another way of spreading the Word to the world. Implementing closed captioning should be a vital part of your ministry –it allows the Gospel to reach beyond the hearing public. There’s a great chance that people are sitting through your church service in a world of silence.
In addition to “planting” closed captioning in your church, another “tree to plant” is live Spanish interpretation.
Think about this: What about people who can hear, but can’t understand? In today’s world, people speaking many different languages often join together at church. Many congregations are implementing live Spanish interpretation services to meet the needs of their Spanish-speaking members. The service Aberdeen offers is not your standard interpretation service requiring a receiving device for each member. With our service, it is simple—Spanish speakers are able to listen to a live audio feed using an internet connection through their mobile or any portable device while sitting in the regular church service. This service can also be used at a home internet connection or even streamed at a separate section of the church for those who do not have their own portable or mobile devices.
There are many additional services you can implement to help provide access to all your church members. These two—closed captioning and live Spanish interpretation—are two great services to start out with. Not everyone has the same opportunity to see Jesus. Your church can answer the call of God by giving the deaf and hard of hearing and the Spanish speakers in your area the ability to know Jesus.
Aberdeen Captioning is known for its quality subtitles, multi-language translations, and fast turn-around times. A recent example of Aberdeen’s expertise in this field is our success with subtitling Saddleback Church’s Online Easter Service. Aberdeen managed to successfully subtitle their 80 minute Easter program in both Korean and Spanish in record time—the files came in on Friday morning and were completed by Saturday morning—24 hours!
This project was detailed and required a team of one English transcriber, one Spanish translator, one Spanish Subtitler, one Korean translator, and one Korean Subtitler. It also required the use of 3 time zones in 3 different countries –Europe, Korean, and the United States—to make it happen! Because of the time restraints, this project took some organized pre-planning to help the process move smoothly and enable it to be a success. Aberdeen is proud to have helped Saddleback Church reach a broader worldwide audience with their Easter Service message.
Keep in mind that at Aberdeen, you do not have to sacrifice quality even if you need a quick turnaround time. We can make it happen!
The era of big bulky tapes being damaged, glitch, or lost in the mail is over! Aberdeen Captioning is offering a new one-stop file distribution service. Clients simply upload their HD source file straight from their editing system and Aberdeen then adds the closed captions or subtitles. Then, Aberdeen takes the new captioned video and can deliver it digitally to any station you need all over the world, in any format the station requires. Worried about your file uploading correctly? Aberdeen uses a unique delivery system called ‘HotFolder’ which does continual bit for bit checking as the file uploads. If the connection happens to get broken, as soon as it is reconnected, it picks up where it left off. You will receive an e-mail once the file is completely uploaded. The process is simple and effective. Check out Aberdeen’s new video which describes this process in detail:
Many people today associate text written in all capital letters as text that is meant to be SHOUTED AT YOU! Over the years, researchers set out to prove which type of text is the most legible. The general consensus today is that lower-case lettered words are easier to read. One reason is simply that you are used to reading this type of font. The majority of print that we read is in upper and lowercase font. Also, the human brain reads words, not letters. Words typed in upper and lowercase have more distinctive shapes and varied contours. This allows us to read the actual word and not just each letter. Words set in all capitals are read letter by letter and hence, reading rate is approximately 15% slower.
So the question that remains is: Why are the majority of closed captions written in all capitals? This problem was a solution to an early decoding problem. The original decoders had trouble with letters that had descenders (g, j, p, q, y). These letters ended up getting squished to fit in the caption line and thus became illegible. So the easy solution at the time was to convert text to all capitals. This became the trend for many years to follow.
However, is there still a need to close caption in all caps? The answer is no. Today’s decoders have no problem with the once tricky letters with descenders. So, in effort to move into the 21st century and to enhance readability, many closed captioning companies are choosing to make the switch to upper and lowercase captions. What are your thoughts on this?
Aberdeen provides live captioning of a church service at Idlewild Church, allowing members of the congregation who are hard of hearing to be able to understand the message being preached.
Background
Senior Pastor Ken Whitten of Idlewild Church realized that members of his congregation were sitting in silence. Although his message was being interpreted by a sign language interpreter, this service was only helpful to church members who actually knew sign language. There were newly deaf (adult-onset) and hard-of-hearing members in his church that had no way of understanding his sermon.
Solution and Execution
Idlewild Church set up large screen projectors with the live captioning streaming from an Aberdeen live captioner so the deaf and hard-of-hearing members could follow the message live.
Results
The live captioning was a success and for the first time completed seamlessly; every member of the congregation had a clear understanding of the message being preached.
"Thanks Team for making yesterday memorable for so many. It’s just the beginning, but it would have never launched without you and your heart and hard work. You’re a blessing to labor with. I could have also talked about a lady who cried at 9:30 too. They are out there. One lady came to see me at the Pastor’s reception and told me she’s telling all her friends. Get ready. It’s meeting a need.”
Pastor Whitten
Aberdeen successfully translated, subtitled, and provided DVD authoring for the documentary God of Wonders, produced by Eternal Productions.
Background
Jim Tetlow, the Executive Producer of God of Wonders, approached Aberdeen with a complex task to translate, subtitle, and create a DVD with 22 subtitled languages and 8 audio languages.
Solution and Execution
Aberdeen has taken on basic DVD authoring projects throughout years, but this was the first of this magnitude. Our very own Austin Bringard used Apple’s DVD Studio Pro to assemble moving menus and was successful in authoring a DVD with (we have to brag again) 22 subtitled languages and 8 audio languages!
Results
Aberdeen rose to meet this challenge and proved to be a success. The final multi-language version includes these selectable languages:
In regards to the upcoming Read Across America Day (see: http://www.nea.org/readacross/), we thought it’d be a good idea to provide some more research and information on the idea of using closed captions to promote literacy.
Television captions can be a valuable reading resource. It provides toddlers, preschoolers, struggling students, low literacy adults, and English language learners with the opportunity to connect spoken dialogue with the printed word. This is much like having a story read aloud. Studies show that the average child watches television 4 to 7 hours a day! It is completely free to turn on closed captioning. With the click of a button, your television can become a free reading resource.
Finland and India have been successful for years at using closed captions and same language subtitles to promote literacy. See the PlanetRead website for more information (http://www.planetread.org/index.php) and to watch a video of former president Bill Clinton endorsing the use of captions for literacy.
In her 2001 study titled, “Learning to read from television: The effects of using captions and narration,” Dr. Deborah Linebarger conducted a study of 76 second-grade students and the benefits of caption use. The study concluded that beginning readers recognize more words when they view television with the captions turned on. The combination of captions and sound helped children identify the critical story elements in the video clips. Television captions, by evoking efforts to read, appeared to help students focus on central story elements and away from distracting information, including sound effects and visual glitz. The conclusion? Turn the captions on!
Over 20 years of meticulous research has validated the link between captions and literacy. For more information, see the list of research articles at www.captionsforliteracy.org. Special thanks to Dr. Deborah Linebarger from the captions for literacy advisory board for all her help and information!
To watch our informative public service announcement on captions for literacy:
Closed captioning has never been easier or more personalized with the arrival of digital captions. With DIRECTV, you simply push the yellow button on the remote to turn on the captions or subtitles. (I prefer the subtitles because the font is yellow and easier for me to read.) Also, if you are sick of the white text in the big black box, you can now personalize your closed captioning. With Cox HDTV cable service (as well as a few other providers), you now have the option to customize your closed-captioning display. You can choose your font, size, position, alignment and even color. Simply press the MENU button, select Closed Captioning, and then use the arrow keys to highlight your desired options. You can even set your closed captions to transparent so the background doesn’t cover too much of the picture.
Since the brand-new launch of Aberdeen’s Multilanguage subtitling and translation department in 2008, we have worked on many exciting projects, but the God of Wonders project has been one of our most adventurous feats yet! God of Wonders is a documentary by Eternal Productions that explores the wonders of creation, conscience, and the glory of God. Jim Tetlow, the executive producer of God of Wonders put his faith in Aberdeen’s AberLingo multilanguage and subtitling department not only to help translate and subtitle his documentary but to also do the entire authoring project!
Aberdeen has taken on basic, simple DVD authoring projects for years, but this was the first large project with this many languages that we have undertaken. Our main DVD author, Austin Bringard (who uses DVD Studio Pro) took on the challenge and assembled moving menus and authored 22 subtitled languages and 8 audio languages.
This new multi-language version includes these selectable languages:
Translators deal with many obstacles when trying to translate colloquilisms and slang expressions. An additional difficulty occurs when dealing with taboo language. If the translator tries to omit the words, it may shift the meaning of the original content. Successful subtitles are ones that always accurately portray the intended meaning, without influencing the interpretation of the audience. This can be achieved by remaining neutral and not making the content either toned down or more explicit.
There are many strategies for dealing with sensitive language. To begin, it is important to note that politically incorrect statements and social taboos are part of everyday language. Translators need to be skilled and knowledgeable regarding slang expressions and taboo words. One benefit for translators is that when sensitive language is in a written form, is typically easier to endure than spoken spoken language. Poor translation (omitting the taboo term or using incorrect slang) can result in confusion and misunderstanding. Translators need to have exceptional comprehension of the native and target language so that puns, expressions, and wordplay are portrayed in a meaningful and accurate manner.
