Now Offering Accurate and Affordable AI-powered Captioning & Transcription

The captions are horrible!  Why can’t they spell?  These are the valid questions asked when watching live closed captioning of a TV broadcast.  Let’s briefly look at the behind the scenes of live closed captioning.  Live closed captioning, in the majority of cases, is completed by a human.  Live captioners, called writers, write to a steno machine (keys are all based on sounds).  The steno machine is connected to live captioning software that has an extensive dictionary to take the steno strokes and convert to English words.  A dictionary is not just imported from Webster’s to the software but rather created per writer based on their writing theory.  So how do they know the difference between words that sound the same such as to, two and too?  They have to remember the stroke they gave that word when creating their dictionary.  So when writing 200-300 words per minute the human behind the machine can mistroke the word and you could see errors such as:

 prays Hymn when it should be praise Him

mall mighty God  when is should be almighty God

top or pop

 There are other times when a word may just clearly not be in their dictionary and it would show up as:

 graph fight when it should be graphite

authentic cater when it should be authenticator

you know sex when it should be unisex

ear gates when it should be irrigates

Aberdeen’s live Abercap department strives to write every show with a 98% or better accuracy rate.  This is completely possible as long as the following is provided:

 1)      Show information such as key words, hosts, guests, websites and phone numbers

2)      Clear audio feed to the live captioner so they can hear the audio they are to write well 

98% accuracy means you may see 4 errors per minute when the speaker is speaking at 200 words per minute. 

 To see a live demo of a live writer, watch this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCPEjz--BvE

If you are interested in learning more about our live captioning department or any other of our broadcast services, feel free to send us a note here.

Each captioning company will categorize their levels of captioning differently, but a fully operating captioning company will offer at these three types of captioning: live captioning, live-to-tape captioning, and post-production captioning.

Here are descriptions of the different types of captioning:

Live Captioning

Just like it sounds, live captioning is written by a live captioner in real-time.  The live captioner is trained as a court reporter and uses a stenograph machine to caption live.  They do not type using a keyboard. The live captioner writes at the same time the show is being broadcasted. The live captioner dials in directly into a T.V. station.

Live-to-tape Captioning

This type of captioning is written by a live captioner in real-time. Instead of dialing into a station, they dial into an encoder and an audio line and write in the same “live” style.  The show is recorded in real-time, but is mailed out to the station and broadcasts on a later date.  This type of captioning is used mainly for extremely tight turnarounds and to reduce cost to the client.  The accuracy rate is much lower than post-production captioning.

Post-Production Captioning

Post-production captions typically get transcribed by a transcriber using a video and audio file that has been digitized.  Many transcribers work remotely (from home) or on location. Typically, a caption editor close captions this type of captioning.  Within post-production captioning, most companies will offer different levels of quality to meet the needs of their clients.