What happens if you are watching your favorite program and the closed captioning drops halfway through or the timing is so slow or fast that it doesn’t match the audio? Perhaps you also noticed a high number of errors in the closed captioning. Or maybe the closed captioning happened to be covering a speaker’s face or an important on-screen graphic? What can you do? The first thing to realize is that you as a consumer have the power to make a difference! If you are unsatisfied with the quality of captioning on a particular station or program, you can help remedy the problem.Read
One of the main goals of every producer is to try to reach the maximum amount of viewers every time their program airs. Apart from engaging content, time slots, and targeting the right regions, there is one simple thing EVERY producer can do. In this article, we will discuss why including Spanish captions is so important, how they work, and who is doing it.
Know Your Audience
First things first: Who is your audience? Perhaps it is as broad as every American across the nation. But do you know who they are? Can they understand your program?
Did you know that according to the United States Census Bureau, the U.S. had the second-largest Hispanic population in the world just behind Mexico [4]? That means there are more Spanish speakers in the U.S. than in Argentina and Spain!
If you live in the United States, you are among 54 million Hispanic people, of whom 38.3 million speak Spanish at home! That is 17% of the entire United States population [4].
And get this… the projected Hispanic population of the United States in 2060 is 128.8 million, which would be 31% of the nation’s population [4]!
Are you taking into consideration this huge audience with your programming? Have you thought about how many more people you could reach with your national TV broadcast, web videos, or DVD sales if you localized your programming with Spanish closed captioning, subtitles, or Spanish voice dubbing? Ministries in the know, like In Touch Ministries, have been doing this for years. Learn from the leaders.
The Secret: Experienced Broadcasters Use CC3
The simple truth is this: By offering captions in various languages, you automatically reach more viewers. Statistically, Spanish is the second most-used language in the United States [1] and there are more Spanish speakers in the U.S. than speakers of Chinese, French, German, Italian, Hawaiian, and the Native American languages combined. Spanish is the best place to start localizing your programming, and there is no faster, more cost-effective way than to utilize CC3.
If you are broadcasting in English, chances are you have already heard or thought about broadcasting Spanish captions. Some of you may already broadcast it via CC2, so why think about using CC3 [2]? Although broadcasting via CC1 and CC2 works well, both of these channels are embedded in field 1. By choosing CC3, which is embedded in field 2, you are able to provide the maximum bandwidth and allow for more accurately timed captions in both languages.
Also, in order to avoid bandwidth problems with early caption decoders [3], the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommends bilingual programming to be broadcast via CC3. Many Spanish television networks, such as Univision and Telemundo, provide English captions for many of their Spanish programs in CC3. The standard nowadays has become to broadcast the original language’s captions on CC1, and then the alternative language’s captions on CC3.
All Ministries Should Consider Spanish Captions
In the Christian broadcasting industry, many ministries see the value of including Spanish captions. Take In Touch Ministries which has implemented the use of CC3 to offer Spanish captions for their English program, In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley. This has allowed them to provide high-quality Spanish captions to their viewers across the country, and gain viewership with their message.
Any ministry that is investing to broadcast nationally, should not only be captioning in English but in Spanish too. There is approximately a 20% increase in viewership and you can get Spanish captions for a fraction of the cost you pay to broadcast your programming. The additional cost is minimal and usually discounted when English and Spanish captioning are done in tandem with the same captioning company.
Observe the languages spoken in your community and you’ll find English is most definitely not the only language understood by your neighbors, and it also isn't always the primary language of your national viewers. Give Spanish captioning a try!
If you have any questions regarding Spanish captioning via CC3 or would like to see what it would cost to add Spanish captions to your video programming, contact us.
More astounding facts about the Hispanic population in the U.S. can be found here: United States Census Bureau.
Sources:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language_in_the_United_States
[2] http://www.captionsinc.com/what.asp
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_captioning
[4] http://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2014/cb14-ff22.html
We've all been there at one time in our life, certainly in our teenage years. Your teacher told you months ago that there would be a major exam at semester’s end and has given you ample time and resources to prepare. But we all just love to wait until the last minute. Maybe the week before, or sometimes the night before. We frantically thumb through stacks of articles, highlighter in hand, trying to absorb as much information as humanly possible in that 24-hour span and work through the night repeating the mantra, “I’ll sleep tomorrow.” If you’re having flashbacks of those days with the FCC’s proposed due date for the new closed captioning quality standards less than 24 hours away, then you can relax and breathe.
Prompted by the Public Notice put out by the FCC, we reached out and confirmed with Eliot Greenwald (Attorney-Advisor, Disability Rights Office) at the FCC that the new firm date for these new caption quality standards will be March 16, 2015. The decision to push the deadline back two months came down to a few uncertainties hanging out there. Moreover, they had found that there was a general lack of informed and prepared Video Programmers (VPs) and Video Program Distributors (VPDs) because the material hasn't been aggressively presented to everyone.Read
Effective January 15, 2015 (Update: FCC Pushes Back the Date on New Captioning Quality Standards), the FCC Report and Order (CG docket No. 05-231) requires all closed captioning to be “properly placed.” The new regulation states: Captioning shall be view-able and shall not block other important visual content on the screen, including, but not limited to, character faces, featured text (e.g., weather or other news updates, graphics and credits), and other information that is essential to understanding a program’s content when the closed captioning feature is activated. Read
Effective January 15, 2015 (Update: FCC Pushes Back the Date on New Captioning Quality Standards), the FCC Report and Order (CG docket No. 05-231) requires all closed captioning to be “complete.” The new guideline states: Captioning shall run from the beginning to the end of the program, to the fullest extent possible.
The Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons reports multiple complaints relating to programs where captions disappeared, failed to appear, or concluded before the end of the program. The NVRC mentions the following examples of complaints from consumers: “...the first episode of [a] CNN series on the Cold War with incoherent captions, an Antique Road Show that inexplicably had no captions, an episode of Friends with captions that ended just a few minutes into the program, [the] complete absence of captioning from Hallmark Channel for weeks, and an episode of Six Feet Under that lost captions after 20 minutes.”
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“Does my closed captioning meet the new synchronization requirement?” The FCC Report and Order (CG docket No. 05-231) states the following regarding closed captioning synchronization:
Captioning shall coincide with the corresponding spoken words and sounds to the greatest extent possible, given the type of the programming. Captions shall begin to appear at the time that the corresponding speech or sounds begin and end approximately when the speech or sounds end. Captions shall be displayed on the screen at a speed that permits them to be read by viewers.
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What does the FCC Report and Order (CG docket No. 05-231) mean when it states that closed captioning needs to be accurate? Hasn't this always been a requirement? Well, not exactly. Previously, there were regulations simply stating that closed captioning was required. However, without addressing quality, closed captioning varied in regards to accuracy. Even without closed captioning accuracy regulations enforced from 2009 to 2013, the Commission received 2,323 viewer complaints on general closed captioning issues. A dubious representation of the actual problem since, until now, there really was no motivation for the viewers to voice their concerns.
In a few weeks, all post-production closed captioning of video programming must be captioned by an offline caption editor. This offline or post-production captioner is trained on various captioning rules, such as correct punctuation and spelling, synchronicity, caption placement, reading speed, etc. In the past, a live captioning style (writing with a steno machine and paraphrasing the spoken word) could be used for post-produced programs even though they were not actually airing in a live format. However, come January 15, 2015 (Update: FCC Pushes Back the Date on New Captioning Quality Standards), this will no longer be acceptable.
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The deadline of January 15, 2015 (Update: FCC Pushes Back the Date on New Captioning Quality Standards) is quickly approaching as the FCC closed captioning laws will begin weighing in on some much-needed quality issues. Aberdeen Broadcast Services is here to help break down the new FCC Report and Order that was released earlier this year (CG docket No. 05-231) into easy-to-understand and concise guidelines. Our goal is to help producers enter the New Year confident that their programs are in compliance with the new FCC closed captioning requirements.
The FCC issued its first set of closed captioning requirements over sixteen years ago in order to provide telecommunications for the deaf and hard of hearing. The objective was to ensure that all Americans have access to video programming. Mandating that programs had closed captions was a great start at accessibility, but quality control was the next step as the original rules were fairly basic--closed captioning needed to be present on the screen. Now, the FCC has adopted captioning quality standards and technical compliance rules to certify that the quality of captions best replicate the experience of television programs for all audiences.
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If you've ever watched an old noir film—the ones where the troubled narrator rambles on about his dire circumstances in worried existential grief—then you’re probably familiar with voice-over. Employed through various ways in cinema, for which it’s garnered iconic in pop culture today, the technique actually has a more common, practical use in day-to-day news and radio.
When an interviewee speaks a foreign language, production companies typically use voice actors to record over the original audio. This way, the viewer hears the interviewee in the background speaking his or her language, while the voice actor interprets. In most cases, the volume of the voice actor is much louder and lags seconds behind the original audio track. This voice-over technique is useful because it allows the viewer to both hear and understand the speaker’s words at the same time. This is typically referred to as UN-Style voice-over.
Another audiovisual process is called dubbing. Not to be confused with the electronic music genre (yes, that one), dubbing is when all the elements of sound are mixed including the original production track with any additional recordings; joined together, they make a complete soundtrack. In the video production world, the phrase “dubbing” is used when the original speaker’s audio track is replaced entirely by the voice actor’s. Contrary to voice-over (UN-Style), which preserves the original track underneath the voice actor, the dub must be carefully timed and synchronized to match the speaker’s lips, meaning, and even intonations. To be more specific, this is often referred to as lip-sync dubbing. As imagined, this process is arduous and lengthy; oftentimes, the voice actor is required to work with editors in a studio re-recording segments where the audio and visuals struggle to match.
Looking for someone to do your voice-over/dubbing work? Aberdeen wants to take care of it for you! For more information, please visit: AberLingo Language Services.
What if captioning wasn't limited to multimedia and entertainment mediums and could transcend, by way of tech devices, into day-to-day interactions with others? It’s what app developers at Georgia Tech are trying to accomplish—real-time captions of real-life conversations. The question is, does it really work?
Some are calling it “instant captions” - a concept rarely synonymous with accuracy (except when real-time captioners are involved). All you need is a smart phone and Google Glass (the Explorer model goes for a measly $1,500). One need only speak into a smartphone microphone, and the app turns spoken dialogue into a transcript. That transcript is converted into captions displayed on the user’s glassware. There’s a slight delay, but the auditory features of Glass appear accurate and (arguably) promising.
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