The closed-captioning mystery answered!

[Good Ol' Batmanuel!]

I've seen discussions and/or debates about closed-captioning on the boards here a few times and especially about how (unintentionally) funny it can be, so I thought I'd share a portion from today's The Straight Dope newsletter:

Dear Straight Dope:

How does closed-captioning – the dialogue that appears on a television screen to assist the hearing-impaired in their quest to be as dumb-downed as the rest of us – work for live broadcasts? I understand how it would be no problem for a pre-recorded show, like a History Channel narrative or a prime-time sitcom. But when I watch local news or a sports broadcast, for example, I notice a considerable delay between hearing the words and seeing them appear on-screen. Even then, many words are misspelled, and sometimes words or even whole sentences are missing. Is this done with some kind of not-yet-quite-perfect voice-recognition technology, or is some poor schlep furiously typing away at a keyboard in some dark closet at the station? Such a person would receive my sympathy (not that there's any reward in that). The job seems second only to air traffic controllers for stress! --Richard Mancini, Washougal, Washington

SDSTAFF Q.E.D. replies:

First, a little background. Closed captioning was first introduced in 1971. Originally, the National Standards Bureau (now known as NIST) wanted to embed a time stamp from the Boulder, Colorado atomic clock in television signals, but the idea was abandoned. The ABC network thought that a modification of the proposed scheme could be used to carry captions, i.e., a typed transcript of the show's audio, which hearing-impaired users could decode using a special set-top box. This was considered an improvement over the alternative, an inset picture of someone transcribing the audio using sign language, as was done from time to time. By 1980 CBS, ABC, NBC and PBS were all broadcasting at least some programming with closed captions. In 1990 the Television Decoder Circuitry Act required that all TV sets built for sale in the U.S. with screens 13 inches or larger have a built-in closed caption decoder. These days almost every program on TV has closed captions.

The closed caption system uses a part of the television sync signal (that odd-looking black bar that you see when the picture "rolls") called line 21. The black bar is necessary because the set needs to turn the electron gun(s) off and return the beam to the top left of the screen before it starts drawing the next frame. The brief period during which the screen is black is called the vertical blanking interval. Since the set isn't doing anything else during this time, a portion of the blanking interval can be used to carry information. In the NSB's original scheme, that would have been time data. In the captioning system, it's the captions.

So, they must have some pretty fast typists doing this, huh? Yes and no. The captions for prerecorded programming are prepared before the broadcast. The typists can take their time using a regular computer keyboard. They may pause, restart or even rewind the program they are transcribing to improve accuracy.

Live broadcasts, such as the nightly news, are a different story. Live closed captions are done in real time by a trained stenographer using a court reporter's machine modified for closed captioning. The machine permits the stenographer to transcribe the spoken word a syllable at a time. Accuracy can suffer depending on operator experience, the voice quality and enunciation of the speaker being transcribed, and the overall audio quality. A stenographer who starts to lag behind may skip words or even whole phrases in order to catch up. Miskeys often cause "garbage" characters to appear in the captions, and misunderstandings of what was said can lead to odd-looking spellings or turns of phrase, often with humorous results. Fellow SDSTAFFer C. K. Dexter Haven says that during the 2000 presidential campaign he saw a caption describing George Bush as the "Republican canned bait."

Someday voice-recognition software may take over during live broadcasts, but currently such software is notoriously unreliable, particularly in situations involving multiple speakers with a wide range of voices, accents and inflections. For now, the job falls to skilled men and women working tirelessly behind the scenes to make TV enjoyable – or at least comprehensible – for millions of hearing-impaired viewers. My hat's off to them.

--SDSTAFF Q.E.D.
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

My hat's off to them as well!

[Proteus3]

I love the Straight Dope and I'm glad to find another regular reader of it. I should apply to their newsletter, though I do try to check their site everyday. I was wondering about Closed Captioning too. Straight Dope is criminally underrated considering how useful and intelligent it is (I prefer it to Snopes myself, though Snopes is more about myth busting). Thanks to Straight Dope, I have been able to rid myself of many a misconception and even got into an argument with a history teacher over Catherine the Great's death (I was right, thanks to Straight Dope).

[Conekiller]

I always figured as much, but still funny nonetheless.

[Good Ol' Batmanuel!]

Straight Dope is criminally underrated considering how useful and intelligent it is

Yeah, I'm surprised we don't hear about it more often. I guess its appeal is somewhat limited, which is understandable. I used to watch the TV show, but that only lasted one season and I forgot about it afterwards. Then I thought about it out of the blue and found the website around a year ago. I also wrote to them recently asking a question about my cat and dog and hope they answer it eventually.

[Magwheel]

That's interesting, thanks for posting it. I'd like to try a steno's typewriter/keyboard, with the syllables instead of letters. Sounds fun!

And I didn't even know they had a newsletter. I'll have to look into that, now.

[Brandon Pierce]

Now all we need to do is figure why some seasons of tv shows are in closed caption and other are not.
EXAMPLES:
The UK Whose Line? when shown on Comedy Central, seasons 1 through 8 are not in captions, but seasons 9 and 10 are.
The US Whose Line?, seasons 1 and 2 are not in closed caption, but seasons 3 to 5 are.

[Good Ol' Batmanuel!]

Now all we need to do is figure why some seasons of tv shows are in closed caption and other are not.

Just a guess, but I'd think it all comes down to money (what doesn't? )

What I mean is, the company that produces Who's Line may not have bothered to caption earlier seasons, then decided to later on, for some reason (maybe enough people were asking for it, so they started doing it from a certain period on, but didn't bother to go back and spend the money and time to add it to old seasons). Then when a channel like Comedy Central buys the rights to air the show, they can either spend the money to do the captioning themselves (which I doubt they'd do, and besides, it probably isn't allowed without permission anyway), or ask the owners to do it themselves (highly unlikely if they didn't bother to before!).

The best thing would probably be to write to Comedy Central and ask them. I bet it has something to do with money, whether they skirt the issue or not.

[Griever]

Now all we need to do is figure why some seasons of tv shows are in closed caption and other are not.

Actually we need to figure out why some shows have portions of the captions completely different than the spoken dialogue.

Most times, the captioned dialogue actually turns out to be funnier. Like on the Simpsons, and South Park.

[Enrique]

i know when it comes to cartoons having different captions than titles, it's simply a matter of the (CC) vendor working of a different draft of the script than was used in recording. or perhaps the voice talent improvised something and it wasn't noted on the script. it's an easy mistake to do when there's multiple drafts and since there's months between voice recording and close captioning.
at work i make a 6 minute animated series. i had a close call once when i submitted the script to an entirely different episode! luckily the vendor called me the day he received it and i emailed him the right script. at least i know they actually watch the material instead of just doing the job blind