Editing captions, removing content

Etoile

Etoile

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I've noticed that sometimes the content on captions is edited and doesn't match what is being said. I'm referring to captions on regular TV shows, not live captions.

Sesame Street does this for a very good reason. Little kids read more slowly than adults, so they reduce the captions and leave them up for a long time.
But why would a regular show do this? Does this annoy anybody else too?
 
Etoile said:
I've noticed that sometimes the content on captions is edited and doesn't match what is being said. I'm referring to captions on regular TV shows, not live captions.

Sesame Street does this for a very good reason. Little kids read more slowly than adults, so they reduce the captions and leave them up for a long time.
But why would a regular show do this? Does this annoy anybody else too?
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I've noticed the same thing. Generally, the captions will be conceptually the same, but not verbatim. I have no idea why it is done, other than to facciltate comprehension.:dunno2:
 
Right, exactly...they leave out little bits here and there. I almost called this thread "dumbing down captions" because it feels like they are assuming we can't read fast enough or don't want to know everything that is said.
 
I don't know about other captioning companies, but I worked as an offline captioner for two years, and at my company we never dumbed down captions. We made them as verbatim as humanly possible. We didn't usually transcribe "um" or "uh", unless they were important to the meaning, but every actual word was written just as it was spoken -- including "gonna" if they said "gonna" and "wanna" if they said "wanna". Some companies, I've noticed, change "gonna" to "going to" and "wanna" to "want to", but I feel like that's an inappropriate distortion of tone. So all I can say is that I completely agree with you: captions should not be dumbed down. I wish I knew which company was responsible for the captions you saw, so I could send them a letter of complaint.
 
captions are a pain in the butt to me sometimes. like one day my dad was trying to get the captions on the tv for me, it wouldn't show up and he went to another channel and it worked for some weird reason. then on the other hand sometimes the captions messes up a word that doesn't make sense. To me when the captions are slow its probably because the show is live. if not its an auto caption which is probably from the script when actors already memorized it.
 
I have no problem with mistakes in live captioning. If they make a mistake or leave something out, it's because live captioning is so difficult.

But when it's from a script, why would they drop information like that?

SK, if I see this again, I will try to write down the captioning company and tell you!
 
I don't know why they drop information like that for captioning. I guess its like when they've edited a show and added captioning for us by computer and makes the storyline go along. My school captions are horrible..they use this device to make the captions work..but the school videos are at least a couple years old and captioning wouldn't work so i would have to figure out whats going on in the video which is a huge loss for me.
 
coolgirlspyer90 said:
I don't know why they drop information like that for captioning. I guess its like when they've edited a show and added captioning for us by computer and makes the storyline go along. My school captions are horrible..they use this device to make the captions work..but the school videos are at least a couple years old and captioning wouldn't work so i would have to figure out whats going on in the video which is a huge loss for me.
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Whoa...you have videos with no captions? If you're in the US, that's against the law. I understand not wanting to draw attention to yourself by complaining about it, but if you feel it hurts your classroom experience or your grades, definitely talk to an advisor or guidance counselor. They're allowed to caption their own stuff, but they can't say "oops it doesn't work" and leave you without captions.
 
Etoile said:
Whoa...you have videos with no captions? If you're in the US, that's against the law. I understand not wanting to draw attention to yourself by complaining about it, but if you feel it hurts your classroom experience or your grades, definitely talk to an advisor or guidance counselor. They're allowed to caption their own stuff, but they can't say "oops it doesn't work" and leave you without captions.
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Yeah i know, my IEP says that if the captions doesn't work we should figure out a way to try and have me understand what the video and the lesson is all about. So my teacher gave me a paper and had me try and find the answers in my history text book (in the 8th grade) or a video at home that has captions in it (a dvd of course) but they used this device (i forget whats it called) and it plugs in the VCR and plugs in something else..but the history videotapes are a couple years old. We also have a DVD and my old history teacher who retired when i was in the 7th grade, made a video about history. and he's a video editor too. So we also have other dvds for history that has captioning and it works. Most of the time it doesn't. And i would always get fustrated because i can't understand. My interpreter is there to interpret but my IEP doesn't say she needed to interpret for any videos.
 
I have noticed that too. Most of the time it doesn't bother me. The one I notice it most on is the Hallmark channel. But, it is usually silly things they drop that have nothing to do with the plot. What I really hate is really bad CC like I have been seeing on FOX. I can understand problems with live shows like American Idol, etc. But prerecorded? I have never seen so many little black squares instead of words on any other channel. Constant missed dialogue and backspacing. It can make it hard to know what is going on and I end up having to ask the hubby to explain parts. If only the shows they had weren't so good. I did have an odd experience with CBS a few months ago where the CC ran from bottom to top instead of top to bottom. Has not happened before or since, just that one show. Took a while to get used to.
 
That's just not right..if all the students can't understand the video (and it only takes one) they should not play the video and the students should all be looking for the information in their history books. Or if they can't get the CC to work right, they should at least supply you with transcripts/text of what was said on the video. Why should you have to do extra work the other students don't have to do? Learning is hard enough without extra problems being thrown at you.
 
etalton said:
That's just not right..if all the students can't understand the video (and it only takes one) they should not play the video and the students should all be looking for the information in their history books. Or if they can't get the CC to work right, they should at least supply you with transcripts/text of what was said on the video. Why should you have to do extra work the other students don't have to do? Learning is hard enough without extra problems being thrown at you.
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I know, my parents doesn't want me to complain or hear about it. I mean- i haven't complained about not being able to watch captions at school. They know life isn't fair and I know that. And they think that if life isn't fair, i should just suck it up and move on with it. Its more harder for me to do some stuff that confuses me or i can't understand than hearing people can do. that is probably my weakness. My dad told me that if i can't understand anything, he told me it was my right to stop the teacher and ask her to start over and repeat it slowly. But my thoughts are: "what if the teacher thinks i wasn't paying attention, what if i get into trouble for it?" Because most of our teachers at school are strict. My dad said if i get into trouble for it about the teachers think that i'm not paying attention, my dad was going to give them a piece of his mind.
 
Etoile said:
Whoa...you have videos with no captions? If you're in the US, that's against the law. I understand not wanting to draw attention to yourself by complaining about it, but if you feel it hurts your classroom experience or your grades, definitely talk to an advisor or guidance counselor. They're allowed to caption their own stuff, but they can't say "oops it doesn't work" and leave you without captions.
Click to expand...
The public schools for which I sub-interpret, and the college for which I interpret on a regular basis, have many non-captioned videos. I've complained endlessly but I'm "just the terp" with no power. It will take the students and their families making a formal complaint to get some action.
 
Reba said:
The public schools for which I sub-interpret, and the college for which I interpret on a regular basis, have many non-captioned videos. I've complained endlessly but I'm "just the terp" with no power. It will take the students and their families making a formal complaint to get some action.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Its a constant battle from where I sit, too. Not only do some of the professors use videos without captions, but some of the rooms have projectors that won't read captions because when the IT dept. ordered them, they decided to save money by ordering the ones that did not read captions!!!! Those are currently being replaced, but it has taken me 2 years of bitching and moaning.

I've told my students the same thing. They need to file a formal complaint with the promise of an ADA lawsuit to follow.
 
Etoile said:
I've noticed that sometimes the content on captions is edited and doesn't match what is being said. I'm referring to captions on regular TV shows, not live captions.

Sesame Street does this for a very good reason. Little kids read more slowly than adults, so they reduce the captions and leave them up for a long time.
But why would a regular show do this? Does this annoy anybody else too?
Click to expand...

Maybe this helps?

WGBH - Media Access Group - Captioning FAQ
 
I don't remember seeing something like this done, but I have seen censored captioning through my parent's TV Guardian (TVG). Since my grandparents (mom's parents) are extremely religious, they take swear words and other things very seriously. So, my parents bought a TVG to hook up to the television. I didn't know about it until I noticed that the actors were "humming" or saying nothing during parts of conversations. I also noticed that different words were said instead of other words during the captioning.

Original: "What the hell do you want!?"
TVG Voice: "What (no sound) do you want!?"
TVG Caption: "What do you want!?"

Sometimes, words are replaced with something else.

Original: "Get your ass out of the way!"
TVG: "Get your tail out of the way!"

The reason why I noticed this was because I was already familiar with the show plus I can read lips and I know when something's being changed or blocked out. (It's almost like watching a poorly dubbed Japanese Godzilla movie.) ;)
 
Wow, I just checked out TVG...apparently it works by reading the CC!

I don't have a problem with people censoring captions in the same manner that the audio gets censored. Sometimes the audio is censored and the captions aren't, that's fine with me. I just prefer to get MORE information rather than LESS information.
 
I just finished creating my own srt (subtitle) file for a british tv show and I have a better understanding of CC on tv. Bottom line for prerecorded shows is that the CC is only as good as the transcripts/script handed to the person creating the CC. I started with a british transcript, commercials and all, and still found places where they had left words out. I am hoh, but volume is not as much of a problem for me with this ha as clarity is. That is why I decided to make sub files for shows that didn't have them. It took close to 9 hours to do a sub file for a two hour movie, most of that due to me being new, but it is also a matter of playing, watching the lips and listening, then rewinding and adding subs. Whew! I have a new, healthy respect for the ones that do CC for a living. Yes, they have a program, and are not hoh, but most of it is still done manually by use of the kb.
 
Etoile said:
Wow, I just checked out TVG...apparently it works by reading the CC!

I don't have a problem with people censoring captions in the same manner that the audio gets censored. Sometimes the audio is censored and the captions aren't, that's fine with me. I just prefer to get MORE information rather than LESS information.
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The TVG that my parents have is a bit messed up.

My parents have an external TVG device. So, when they turn it on an leave the captioning on for the television, the captioning overlaps making it look "messy".
 
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