Subtitles & captions

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I wonder, how do your countries do as for captions? Are they common enough? Are they accurate and punctual?
When traveling to London, I was surprised to discover that even TV commercials were captioned! Here in Italy you don't see subtitled advertisements.
 
I wonder, how do your countries do as for captions? Are they common enough? Are they accurate and punctual?
When traveling to London, I was surprised to discover that even TV commercials were captioned! Here in Italy you don't see subtitled advertisements.

Here in the United States, it's mandatory. Been that way for TV since 1990, but in 2012, the US Government mandated (CC) for the Internet, such as YouTube and Netflix. Failure to comply means STEEP fines. And if one is traveling in the US, there is software one can download for watching while on the go. One example is VLC, which I have on my HP laptop (it works quite well, by the way). Some mobile apps for TV have captioning, such as CBS and ABC. Dunno about the others, though.
 
Here some television commercials are captioned, and some are not.
 
Agree with Botts- In the US all the more recent tv shows are captioned but the commercials/ads are another story- not all of them are captioned. I think most if not all of the older tv shows and movies are now captioned.

I think the law allows for some exclusions as to who or what has to be captioned though...As for the internet- Youtube does have an 'automatic captioning' option but it sucks big time and not every video even HAS that option enabled. It's going to be a long long time before everything on the internet/Netflix etc is captioned. Most difficult are videos like on Youtube that are created by the average person and videos that are live. Some news sites and talk shows are getting better about providing captioned shows but others (Kim Komado comes to mind....)don't bother. I know of some software that a person can add the captions to the video or a DVD they created but most people aren't aware of it.

BTW NBC's mobile/iPad app can show captioned shows.
 
CC was mandated years ago as stated. I find most of them pretty atrociously done.
There are some channels that are okay and with minimal issues. But there are way too many other shows where the closed caption looks like a jumble of letters on the screen (it is). Our local cable company always says to contact them for CC issues and I have but nothing happens, so I give up and delete the show. I do watch some older shows and they're all inconsistent - but usually bad (not accurate and punctual ... nope, usually not and it's confusing).

HOW ARE THEY IN ITALY?

The U.S. is so far behind what other countries are doing and I believe this is just another example of it.
 
I have no issues with CC on the shows I watch via FiOS. I would say every TV show, even infomercials have CC 24/7. Some TV commercials don't have CC but I don't care because they are not important to me.
 
I live in Canada - live captions are TERRIBLE. Also they make it really freaking difficult to figure out how to turn the CC on tv channels. When I like a show, I usually just buy it when it comes out on DVD so I can have the CC on easily. There aren't captions for commercials though. Also I have a hard time when you buy a show or movie on the internet - like from Amazon or Walmart or something, and they don't list clear information on whether or not there are captions, and half the time the show doesn't have any captions! That shouldn't even be allowed. It's a real bummer.
 
you mean the exclusions for 1am to 6am on TV and cable?

Some religious programming and also public access tv were excluded.

I think the law allows for some exclusions as to who or what has to be captioned though...
 
Here in the United States, it's mandatory. Been that way for TV since 1990, but in 2012, the US Government mandated (CC) for the Internet, such as YouTube and Netflix. Failure to comply means STEEP fines. And if one is traveling in the US, there is software one can download for watching while on the go. One example is VLC, which I have on my HP laptop (it works quite well, by the way). Some mobile apps for TV have captioning, such as CBS and ABC. Dunno about the others, though.

But nothing is done about unless you report it to FCC you have to fill a long form . I got one and it a pain to do , you need to say what time the show was on , date etc. You can't just call it in . And there a lot misspelled words or the wrong word it used and you're thinking HUH??
 
I make it a point to personally thank all youtubers for captioning their videos both in the comments and in the discussion section of their page. I think there are a lot of people who just don't take it into consideration because CC aren't a part of their everyday life. Youtubers can't meet us halfway if we don't make them aware of how much captions matter. (not to mention how many more views/subscriptions they would get for consistent captioning.) Although these days my youtube experience is more gag reel or AFV type stuff.
 
In my opinion most shows with CC are pretty bad. The CC is delayed making it pretty difficult to follow. Live shows are the worst, news and sports. I see very few commericals with CC which is OK with me. I avoid movies and shows where multiple people are talking, it's too difficult to follow the CC for me.
 
In my opinion most shows with CC are pretty bad. The CC is delayed making it pretty difficult to follow. Live shows are the worst, news and sports. I see very few commericals with CC which is OK with me. I avoid movies and shows where multiple people are talking, it's too difficult to follow the CC for me.

Stop and think! There is no way that live captioning cannot be somewhat delayed as the can't caption it until they hear it being said.
 
Stop and think! There is no way that live captioning cannot be somewhat delayed as the can't caption it until they hear it being said.

Well, some of the news could be if they'd give the captioner the same script as they give the reporters.
 
Stop and think! There is no way that live captioning cannot be somewhat delayed as the can't caption it until they hear it being said.

Excuse me!!!!! I know why there is a delay, I just said it made it difficult for "ME" to follow. Do I think it could be better...YES.

Some people are so grumpy these days.
 
The other thing that makes me mad is when CC is at the bottom of the TV screen and the news channel runs extra info or the name of someone over top of the CC making what is said by CC unreadable. The news has such a delay. But the most annoying thing to me is when the CC has not finished the line and a commercial comes on and kills the last of the CC. There is certainly room for improvement and nothing will be done unless we say something about it even if we nag over and over. I am pleased we have CC but it needs to be tweaked and change only happens when voices speak out about the problem.
 
The other thing that makes me mad is when CC is at the bottom of the TV screen and the news channel runs extra info or the name of someone over top of the CC making what is said by CC unreadable. The news has such a delay. But the most annoying thing to me is when the CC has not finished the line and a commercial comes on and kills the last of the CC. There is certainly room for improvement and nothing will be done unless we say something about it even if we nag over and over. I am pleased we have CC but it needs to be tweaked and change only happens when voices speak out about the problem.

I have one station that is particularly bad about a conflict of another big band and the captioning. BUT the captions are OVER the other which probably helps some.

An incomplete line when going to commercial is common it seems with all stations. I do have a very good email setup with the guy that is in charge of captioning at one of the stations here and will have to ask him about this.
 
I've seen some shows/programs where they do put the captions at the top of the screen to avoid the conflict with information at the bottom. A lot of the sports events do that now.

Used to be that the only place they COULD put the captions were at the bottom for technological reasons- I've forgotten and would have to go look it up lol.

Maybe someday the end user will be allowed to choose where to place the captions when watching..that would be nice... or expand on the caption glasses from the movies... would be cool to have an added feature into my personal pair of glasses for captions :D
 
Just checking CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews and ESPN on TV. CNN and ESPN display CC at the top and the rest display CC above the ticker.

Bald Eagle, yeah I agree with you about the cut-off when it's a commercial time after news reporting. I was like "Whoa, what happened to the bad guy? Hunted, caught or dead?". Annoying!

DeafDucky, I also think that someday we can choose a placement for CC since we can change a color, font type and size so why not a placement? Computer technology can make it happen.
 
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