Types of Captioning

[juliae]

I was wondering about something. Why is it that some cc'd programs caption word for word and others caption by paraphrasing what is said on the program? Do different captioning companies (not sure what the right word is) decide that or do the networks? Just thought it is interesting to see the different types of captioning.

 

[jejones3141]

Check out 2005 Captioning Key (PDF format). That document specifies standards for how captioning should be done. One of the constraints is on how fast the captions force you to read. Captioning Key says captions should be verbatim, including slang and dialect, save where verbatim text would require people to read faster than a certain rate.

That said, yeah, I've seen captioners omit words in cases that I don't think fall under the limits on how many words per minute one can comfortably read. I don't know why they do that--though when you're captioning in real time, going back to insert a word might lead to that much worse results as you miss still more.

Now... if you look at the EIA 708B standard, or rather the ATSC 53 digital TV standard, the Caption Service Directory has a section in the entry for each service that says whether the service is verbatim or not. I think the intention for non-verbatim caption services is that they can be read by people for whom the captioning language isn't their native language, or by children with limited vocabulary.