Closed Captioning Blog

Are you familiar with IP-delivered programming? This includes all videos that are distributed via the Internet (where you watch the program on your personal computer, cell phone, Xbox, etc.) The most popular sources are video on demand, iTunes, Hulu, and of course, YouTube. If you are a producer and you think your IP-delivered programming is exempt from closed captioning, think again! The FCC released new rules this year ...

The Commission allows producers to submit a closed captioning waiver if they feel they need to be exempt from the closed captioning rules. However, the Commission has rejected hundreds of closed captioning waivers since last year and it seems as though this trend is continuing. Many small producers are filing waivers that claim that closed captioning of their programs is economically burdensome. The problem is that they are ...

Last year, Netflix was sued by the National Association of the Deaf for not providing closed captioning or subtitles on its streaming content. Netflix took this to heart and is working hard to remedy the problem. In December 2011, Netflix reached their goal—80% of the hours of video streamed in the US contained captions or subtitles. This is a huge jump from the 40% that it was in ...

Access to closed captioning is looking up… to the sky! Continental Airlines is now the first airline to offer closed captioning on more than 100 DIRECTV channels, through LiveTV, the world’s leading provider of in-flight entertainment. Closed captioning will be available on all the Continental flights aboard the Boeing 737 aircraft. Each passenger will have the ability to turn the closed captions on, thus providing accessibility to a ...

To sell, or not to sell, that is the question.  As a “sales guy,” in a sales position, that should be an easy one, right?  It would be except for the fact that I’m really a sales engineer.  That’s my title and I’m stickin’ to it.  It’s the engineer part of that fan dangled moniker that has me asking the “not to sell” part of the aforementioned question.  ...

Three months ago I debuted into the Closed Captioning (CC) world when I started working with Aberdeen Captioning. Needless to say, the many misconceptions and myths that I had about what CC is and how it works have now been completely debunked. Below are the top five things I was surprised to learn: 1. It’s an FCC requirement I used to think that it was optional and TV stations did it just ...

Though we are stuck in one location with one official language in one country, it doesn't mean the videos that we post on the Internet are limited to one's geographical location. It's time to go global since the Internet doesn't have limitations on audience, language, cultures, etc. Producers should aim to go global by adding different languages in the captioning/subtitling when they post their videos on the Web. ...

What you see here is a photo of the television in my family room. Notice anything interesting? Give up? Okay, I’ll tell you. The closed captioning is on, and no, it’s not just something I did for this picture. I have the closed captioning on all the time. But why? I’m in my early 30’s and my hearing is just fine. So again, why? The answer is ...

In the genre of surreal cartoon humor there seems to be some debate over the creation and upkeep of closed captions. Specifically, in reference to the program “Family Guy,” the controversy revolves around the opening song lyrics, particularly, baby Stewie’s solo line of “laugh and cry.” While it is noted that the program’s creator, Seth MacFarlane, has clearly stated that Stewie’s line has always been “laugh and cry,” ...

My whole life I’ve had an affinity for the English language (and alliteration). Proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation have always been incredibly important to me – even to the point where I will comment on friends’ Facebook statuses with corrections! So naturally, one of my favorite aspects of closed captioning is being able to use my love and knowledge of the English language, professionally, every single day. Here at ...