ABC caption/audio sync

R

rinse

New Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2010
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
Is anyone experiencing poor caption/audio sync during all of ABC's prime time broadcasts? I've noticed this for a long time now, even during the last TV season if I remember correctly.

I saved a 30 second clip from this week's "Castle":


The sync varies from spot-on to a second behind,. It happens throughout ABC shows. I've compared SD and HD broadcasts, which behave the same, and I only notice this with ABC. My suspicion is that whoever provides the captioning for ABC does a poor job with syncing to the audio.

For my sister, who relies on the captioning, the random lag is frustrating when many characters speak very quickly.

For the rest of the family, the random lag is very uncomfortable because it's like we're hearing the same dialog twice in our heads.

I'm in Dallas, and I'm curious if people in other parts of the US are seeing this.

I contacted ABC, who forwarded my comment to the local "Director of Technology". He basically decided the captioning looks close enough and blew me off.

<rant>It'd be one thing if he just said, "yeah, that's pretty bad, but I guess you'll just have to suck it up." It's another to just decide it's good enough and stop responding to me. I'm trying to get them to improve their captioning, and I had to do all the work of comparing broadcasts and uploading a clip. From what I can tell he hasn't done jack, including turning on the captioning and checking out the issue himself.</rant>

Anyway, if anyone can help me confirm that the caption/audio sync for ABC really is kinda crappy, that'd help me out a lot, since ABC apparently won't honestly investigate it.

I'm also curious if the FCC requires that the captioning is well-sync'ed to the audio, or if we should just be grateful that there is captioning at all. :( Let me know if I'm just expecting too much from ABC and the local station. Thanks!!
 
Last edited:
I have seen "Castle" in the past but stopped watching it because of CC issue. CC was always out of sync and very far behind. But the video you presented, CC is a lot better than past "Castle" episodes in my area.

CC in your sample video looks somewhat typical as compared to other TV shows. I have noticed in "Castle" episodes, characters speak very fast to each other and it's difficult for CC to sync well.

I will have to watch "Castle" again to see if CC has improved.

Peter
 
Thanks for checking out the clip, Peter.

I think maybe I could have picked a better example. I looked in on ABC last night, and the sync was terrible during "Flashforward", which I don't typically watch. There were four characters on screen, and honestly, I can't imagine how a person who relies on the captioning was supposed to be able to follow who is speaking at all.

It's terrible that you find this to be typical in your area. I find that other broadcasters (e.g. FOX, CBS, HBO, etc.) have captions that are 99.99% sync'ed to the audio.

"House" on FOX has a lot of fast dialog, and there was a time when the caption sync was frustratingly poor, but these days it's pretty spot-on every week.
 
I exchanged e-mails with the station's general manager, and he also thinks the delay in the captioning from his station is just fine.

I give up. :-/
 
are you watching this from the internet?

I have problem with captioning all the time on high definition.
 
No, this is my local ABC broadcast. For some reason the caption is always poorly sync'ed on ABC here for both SD and HD, and there's apparently no convincing anyone at the station that there's an issue.

I'm surprised to hear you and peternagy both seem to have regular issues with captioning. I really only have regular issue with ABC here.

I recently downloaded an ABC show because I missed it, and the subtitle someone on the internet made was perfect. It felt so good to finally watch an ABC show with sync'ed caption/subtitle. Ahhhhh...

(Obligatory: Not advocating downloading shows. ;)
 
I just watched Flash Forward for about half an hour and the CC is slightly delayed enough to be somewhat annoying. It appears to be a little worse than other channels. I can conclude that CC in ABC shows is not as good as other channels but I think it's improving. Like I said before, CC in "Castle" was horrible and hopefully now it's better. I will have to watch the latest "Castle" episode and see if it's better than before. For some strange reasons, I simply don't watch ABC shows because they don't appear as interesting to me as other channels.

Peter
 
I've noticed that some of the newer movies (like 2002) on TV don't have closed captioning. That surprises me because I thought majority of movies and shows beyond 1996 would have closed captioning
 
I just watched the first 20 minutes of "Castle" and it was much better than before. Every once in a while there wa a very short delay but it was watchable. The annoying part is when two sets of captions appear simultanously, one set for each character and that drives me crazy. It's hard to tell which caption belongs to which character espeically when they speak quickly.

Bottom line it was watchable, at least in my area in Reno, NV.

Peter
 
:( last night on TV, on HD, Chuck did not have closed captioning whatsoever. I was very disappointed.
 
I am sorry to read about your CC issues. Are you using cable, satellite or OTA antenna? Contact your TV subscriber about your CC issues.

I use OTA antenna and I watched Chuck and CC worked perfectly for me.

Please don't get insulted but did you make sure CC was enabled in your TV or cable/satellite box? Sometimes I disable CC if I watch sports and usually forget to re-enable CC.

Peter
 
I tried everything. I turned on my DVR CC setting on and tried different format of CC. even switch the DVR on S-video with CC (tv) turned on. It didn't show up on there either.

I have watched Chuck many times, and this was the first time it didn't show closed captioning. I'm thinking Cox is messed up right now.
 
if you have problem with CC on your HDTV, You can re-run to watch "Castle" on Hulu TV/ CC online. Hulu - Search American version only for watching.
 
I've just about given up on watching ABC shows live because the captioning is so off. I'll wait for it on Hulu or even DVD. btw, I live in Portland, Oregon. So I don't think the problem is with the local affiliate. There's probably nothing they can do as it comes from network.
 
There was just a commercial about DirectTV fixing the audio feeds on the ABC channel, so it may be problems with your provider and not the actual station.
 
Back
Top