Author Topic: It's about time (Read 6219 times)

GS Warehouse · « **on:** January 02, 2008, 01:41:38 PM »

I'm typing this during the second break on Card Sharks (right now, we're just past New Year's 1980). And in those first two segments, to my surprise, I discovered that CS has closed-captioning now! Of course, it's not the best captioning job in the world, but still, it's a start.

Scrabbleship · « **Reply #1 on:** January 02, 2008, 02:02:06 PM »

[quote name=\'GS Warehouse\' post=\'173613\' date=\'Jan 2 2008, 01:41 PM\']
I'm typing this during the second break on Card Sharks (right now, we're just past New Year's 1980). And in those first two segments, to my surprise, I discovered that CS has closed-captioning now! Of course, it's not the best captioning job in the world, but still, it's a start.
[/quote]

And now another one cam be added to the list: I just noticed a closed-captioning bug on the Password Plus that's airing right now (the first show of the Della Reese/Bill Anderson week).

narzo · « **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2008, 04:28:55 PM »

There's some technology out now that makes it easier to caption so I'm guessing that might be why. While in the past you had to physically type in the information there is now some voice recognition software that can be used and it's less expensive. I know because a certain network I wont shamelessly self-promote just started using it, where in the past we had to pay an off-site company to do it. Now somebody sits in a room and vocally repeats (clearly) into a microphone what is said on air and VOILA, captions.

trainman · « **Reply #3 on:** January 03, 2008, 12:16:31 AM »

[quote name=\'narzo\' post=\'173623\' date=\'Jan 2 2008, 01:28 PM\']
There's some technology out now that makes it easier to caption so I'm guessing that might be why. While in the past you had to physically type in the information there is now some voice recognition software that can be used and it's less expensive. I know because a certain network I wont shamelessly self-promote just started using it, where in the past we had to pay an off-site company to do it. Now somebody sits in a room and vocally repeats (clearly) into a microphone what is said on air and VOILA, captions.
[/quote]

Ah, yes, voicewriting. Unfortunately, much as there's a lot more to a good game show than saying "hey, let's revive 'Sale of the Century,'" there's a lot more to good closed captioning than "repeat[ing] (clearly) into a microphone what is said on air and VOILA, captions."

Anyway, now that it's 2008, everything airing on TV between 6:00 A.M. and midnight is supposed be captioned. They may not be what I would consider captions, but as long as there are some sort of letters being superimposed somewhere on the screen at most of the points where people are talking, the FCC is fine with it.

sshuffield70 · « **Reply #4 on:** January 03, 2008, 09:35:01 AM »

[quote name=\'narzo\' post=\'173623\' date=\'Jan 2 2008, 04:28 PM\']
There's some technology out now that makes it easier to caption so I'm guessing that might be why. While in the past you had to physically type in the information there is now some voice recognition software that can be used and it's less expensive. I know because a certain network I wont shamelessly self-promote just started using it, where in the past we had to pay an off-site company to do it. Now somebody sits in a room and vocally repeats (clearly) into a microphone what is said on air and VOILA, captions.
[/quote]

Oh, is that why it looks garbled a bit when I see it? Looks like it needs more work.

Scrabbleship · « **Reply #5 on:** January 05, 2008, 01:14:35 PM »

[quote name=\'sshuffield70\' post=\'173662\' date=\'Jan 3 2008, 09:35 AM\']
[quote name=\'narzo\' post=\'173623\' date=\'Jan 2 2008, 04:28 PM\']
There's some technology out now that makes it easier to caption so I'm guessing that might be why. While in the past you had to physically type in the information there is now some voice recognition software that can be used and it's less expensive. I know because a certain network I wont shamelessly self-promote just started using it, where in the past we had to pay an off-site company to do it. Now somebody sits in a room and vocally repeats (clearly) into a microphone what is said on air and VOILA, captions.
[/quote]

Oh, is that why it looks garbled a bit when I see it? Looks like it needs more work.
[/quote]

Garbled or lagging about 10 seconds from what is on the air? I've it noticed it lagging more than being garbled which can be annoying though, at least in the case of Super Password, the ending portion of ticket/fee plugs is coming through in caption form.

trainman · « **Reply #6 on:** January 08, 2008, 12:38:21 AM »

[quote name=\'Scrabbleship\' post=\'173918\' date=\'Jan 5 2008, 10:14 AM\']]Garbled or lagging about 10 seconds from what is on the air? I've it noticed it lagging more than being garbled which can be annoying though, at least in the case of Super Password, the ending portion of ticket/fee plugs is coming through in caption form.
[/quote]

That's clearly the result of GSN not creating edited air masters, but just programming their automation system to skip over the ticket/fee plugs -- obviously, the captioners dutifully captioned everything that was on the tapes that GSN sent them.

Tim L · « **Reply #7 on:** January 09, 2008, 11:40:07 AM »

This leads me to ask a question that admittedly may be off-topic..I had a friend dub some old tapes for me, specifically WEWS-TV 5's 50th anniversary show in 1997 (And other surrounding programs, such as Morning Exchange and the local newscasts) and WKYC-TV 3's 50th anniversary in 1998. I am just about sure these programs were captioned-(At least the hosting segments-Morning Exchange I am sure was)..I can use the captioning on my PC's DVD plauer but not on the TV, DVD player or Dish Reciever..Is there a way to get around this to use the TV closed captioning at least to see the captions on the DVD?

TenPoundHammer · « **Reply #8 on:** January 09, 2008, 11:52:58 AM »

I don't have an answer, but that does remind me of a couple oddities in my collection: when I watch the HR'80 finale with original ads, one of the ads is closed captioned (but nothing else is) -- I wasn't aware captioning technology even existed in 1980. The same is true of an entire clip special (I forget which; my tape collection got scattered about when we moved), also taped from original broadcast around 1984. Has anyone else noticed a similar oddity in original broadcasts from this era?

On the plus side, I'm glad to see that GSN is captioning their entire lineup. There're still a couple bugs -- most notably, the occasional lag, and the fact that

anything more than two lines long

really ends up spaced out.

dzinkin · « **Reply #9 on:** January 09, 2008, 12:24:27 PM »

[quote name=\'TenPoundHammer\' post=\'174281\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 11:52 AM\']
I don't have an answer, but that does remind me of a couple oddities in my collection: when I watch the HR'80 finale with original ads, one of the ads is closed captioned (but nothing else is) -- I wasn't aware captioning technology even existed in 1980.
[/quote]
Per this history, closed-captioning has existed since the early 1970s, although the first captioned series didn't show up until 1980.

Quote

The same is true of an entire clip special (I forget which; my tape collection got scattered about when we moved), also taped from original broadcast around 1984. Has anyone else noticed a similar oddity in original broadcasts from this era?

One oddity I noticed along these lines was from the Discovery Channel, and involved the full-text channels that are part of the closed-captioning information. Discovery used to have a crime show on Saturday nights that consisted of old stories from 20/20 with updates tacked on. Well, back when the segments originally aired on 20/20, ABC was using one of the full-text channels as a primitive program guide -- and when the segments were rerun on Discovery, turning on the TXT1 channels showed the same program guides from years before.

TenPoundHammer · « **Reply #10 on:** January 09, 2008, 12:42:25 PM »

[quote name=\'dzinkin\' post=\'174291\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 12:24 PM\']One oddity I noticed along these lines was from the Discovery Channel, and involved the full-text channels that are part of the closed-captioning information. Discovery used to have a crime show on Saturday nights that consisted of old stories from 20/20 with updates tacked on. Well, back when the segments originally aired on 20/20, ABC was using one of the full-text channels as a primitive program guide -- and when the segments were rerun on Discovery, turning on the TXT1 channels showed the same program guides from years before.
[/quote]

I'm not familiar with full text channels. What are they?

dzinkin · « **Reply #11 on:** January 09, 2008, 12:59:34 PM »

[quote name=\'TenPoundHammer\' post=\'174294\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 12:42 PM\']
I'm not familiar with full text channels. What are they?
[/quote]
Basically, "captions" that take the entire screen instead of a few lines. Just as you might switch from CC1 to CC2 or CC3 for, say, Spanish-language captions, you'd switch to TXT1 or TXT2 (sometimes called T1 and T2) for the text channels. ABC used them for programming announcements, as I noted; I'd have to bet that at least a few other networks have used them as well, but offhand I honestly can't think of any other examples.

trainman · « **Reply #12 on:** January 09, 2008, 11:34:23 PM »

[quote name=\'dzinkin\' post=\'174291\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 09:24 AM\']Per this history, closed-captioning has existed since the early 1970s, although the first captioned series didn't show up until 1980.[/quote]

They say closed-captioning started on March 16, 1980, but don't say what was captioned. I happen to have the TV Guide from that week, and can report that both the "Disney's Wonderful World" presentation of "Son of Flubber" and the ABC Sunday Night Movie presentation of "Force 10 from Navarone" were listed as being captioned. The first series programs I can find that were captioned: ABC's "Three's Company" and PBS's "Mystery!", both on Tuesday, March 18.

And while I'm at it, their history says that real-time captioning was developed in 1982 -- I happen to know the first thing to be captioned live was the 1982 Academy Awards telecast. The court reporter who captioned it was one of the principals of the captioning company I worked for.

Sorry, I have no idea what the first game show to be captioned was.

Edited to add: Oops, after I wrote all this up, I noticed that the history page David linked to has a separate link to a page of "firsts" that does give you some of the information I mentioned above. And that San Francisco TV Guide I have doesn't have "Masterpiece Theater" listed on March 16th -- looks like KQED pre-empted it for a pledge drive special on the life and times of Beverly Sills.

aaron sica · « **Reply #13 on:** January 10, 2008, 01:24:41 PM »

[quote name=\'dzinkin\' post=\'174301\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 12:59 PM\']
Basically, "captions" that take the entire screen instead of a few lines. Just as you might switch from CC1 to CC2 or CC3 for, say, Spanish-language captions, you'd switch to TXT1 or TXT2 (sometimes called T1 and T2) for the text channels. ABC used them for programming announcements, as I noted; I'd have to bet that at least a few other networks have used them as well, but offhand I honestly can't think of any other examples.
[/quote]

PBS stations used them as well, IIRC, and ran news stories on them...

BrandonFG · « **Reply #14 on:** January 10, 2008, 03:31:34 PM »

[quote name=\'trainman\' post=\'174390\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 11:34 PM\']
Sorry, I have no idea what the first game show to be captioned was.
[/quote]
I want to say either Wheel or Jeopardy!, c. 1992 or so, and TPiR a couple of years later. I at least remember seeing the CC symbol during the intro during the 10th anniversary season.