mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
Whether you’ve encountered its unmistakable white text on black background at the gym, in a bar, or on the couch, you’re familiar with closed captioning. Here’s a brief history of the technology that has provided a (mostly accurate) transcript of television programming for nearly 40 years.
Television captioning begins – with Julia Child
The nation’s first captioning agency, the Caption Center, was founded in 1972 at the Boston public television station WGBH. The station introduced open television captioning to rebroadcasts of The French Chef with Julia Child and began captioning rebroadcasts of ABC News programs as well, in an effort to make television more accessible to the millions of Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Closed captioning makes its debut
Captions on The French Chef were viewable to everyone who watched, which was great for members of the deaf and hard of hearing community, but somewhat distracting for other viewers. So the Caption Center and its partners began developing technology that would display captions only for viewers with a certain device. “The system, called ‘closed captioning,’ uses a decoder that enables viewers to see the written dialogue or narration at the bottom of the screens,” reported the New York Times in 1974. “On sets without the decoder, the written matter is invisible.”
The technology, which converts human-generated captions into electronic code that is inserted into a part of the television signal not normally seen, was refined through demonstrations and experiments funded in part by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. In 1979, the Federal Communications Commission formed the National Captioning Institute (NCI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and providing access to closed captioning. The first closed-captioned programs were broadcast on March 16, 1980, by ABC, NBC, and PBS. CBS, which wanted to use its own captioning system called teletext, was the target of protests before agreeing to join its network brethren in using closed captioning a few years later.
CC and the law
In 1990, a law was passed mandating that all televisions 13 inches or larger manufactured for sale in the U.S. contain caption decoders. Sixteen years later, the FCC ruled that all broadcast and cable television programs must include captioning, with some exceptions. The exceptions include ads that run less than 5 minutes and programs aired between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. According to captions.com, only about half of the commercials that aired during last season’s Super Bowl were captioned, despite the fact that the cost of captioning a 30-second spot is about $200.
Prerecorded vs. Real-time captioning
Prerecorded captioning is applied to prerecorded programming, such as sitcoms, movies, commercials, and game shows. According to NCI, it can take up to 16 hours to caption a one-hour prerecorded program, as the process involves more than transcribing a program’s script. Using special software, the captioner must set the placement of the caption on the screen, as well as set when the caption appears and disappears. In the early days of captioning, scripts were edited for understanding and ease of reading. Today, captions generally provide verbatim accounts of what is said on the screen, as well as descriptions of other sounds in the background.
Real-time captioning, which was introduced in 1982, provides a means for the deaf and hard of hearing community to enjoy live press conferences, local news, and sporting events on television as they happen. Real-time captioning is typically done by court reporters or similarly trained professionals who can type accurately at speeds of over 200 words per minute. While captioners for prerecorded programs typically use standard keyboards, a real-time captioner requires a steno machine.
How a steno machine works
A steno machine contains 22 keys and uses a code based on phonetics for every word, enabling skilled stenographers to occasionally reach typing speeds of more than 300 words per minute. Words and phrases may be captured by pressing multiple keys at the same time, and with varying force, a process known as chording. Real-time captioners, or stenocaptioners, regularly update their phonetic dictionaries, which translate their phonetic codes into words that are then encoded into the video signal to form closed captions.
Real-time captioning isn’t easy
For live newscasts, closed captioners often receive the script that appears on the teleprompter in advance, but not every anchor follows this script as religiously as Ron Burgundy. Whereas court reporters generally aren’t concerned with context and can clean-up the first draft of their transcript at a later time, context matters for real-time captioners, who have one shot to accurately record what is being said. Given the speed at which they work, homonyms can prove especially difficult for stenocaptioners, as can unfamiliar or unusual names.
According to Jeff Hutchins, a founder of one of the nation’s leading captioning companies, there’s more to being a closed captioner than knowing how to type. “There’s a certain pathology to the process that we recognize,” he told a New York Times reporter in 2000. “A young lady will come in here, pretty good court reporter, very confident about her abilities, excited that she’s going to get into captioning, and she will begin the training process very fired up, excited. Generally we know that in two to four weeks that she is going to be walking around with stooped shoulders, totally dejected, feeling like, ‘I’ll never get this.’”
Stenocaptioners can make more than $100,000 a year, but the work is stressful. Kathy DiLorezno, former president of the National Court Reporters Association told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the job is akin to “writing naked, because a million people are reading your words. You can’t make a mistake.”
Mistakes happen
While a faulty decoder or poor signal can produce captioning errors, more often than not they are the result of human error, particularly during live programming. While stenocaptioners prepare for broadcasts by updating their phonetic dictionaries with phonetic symbols for names and places that they expect to hear, even the most prepared and accurate stenocaptioner will make a mistake from time to time. For instance, all it takes is a single incorrect keystroke to type the phonetic codes for two completely different words. Mistakes aren’t limited to words, either. In 2005, American Idol displayed the wrong phone number to vote for contestants in the closed captioning of its broadcast. Media companies are experimenting with automatic error-correcting features, voice-to-text technology, and innovative ways to provide captions for multimedia on the Internet, and while captioning figures to become cheaper, faster, and more prevalent than it is today, the occasional mistake will likely always remain.
More from mental_floss…
The Mojave Desert’s Airplane Graveyard: A Photo Tour
*
7 Civil War Stories You Didn’t Learn in High School
*
6 Really Strange Truck Spills
*
Why Does Bottled Water Have An Expiration Date?
*
10 Bizarre Video Games
*
The White House Gift Guide: 13 Unique Presidential Gifts
*
Mental Floss: Sly Stallone Pudding & Other Unique Celebrity Products
*
31 Unbelievable High School Mascots
Comments (39)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
Thanks so much for this interesting article! As the spouse of a hearing impaired person, I’m so used to captions I even prefer to have them on when I watch tv alone. It’s pretty funny sometimes to watch sporting events, because you can tell the person typing has no clue about the names or terms they are typing. Also, if a curse word slips in it’s funny to see of the captions “bleeps” it or not.
posted by Jamie on 9-3-2009 at 11:07 am
Funny, I thought it started with Garrett Morris: (hands cupping mouth) OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT…
posted by Bubba on 9-3-2009 at 11:08 am
My wife and I were watching ‘The African Queen’ the other night and the DVD had the English subtitles stuck on. There were some great mistakes, including Humphrey Bogart telling Katharine Hepburn, “I’m the captain here, a** hole.”
posted by Jason English on 9-3-2009 at 11:18 am
“DO NOT WANT!” Sorry, had to do it.
I typically watch DVDs with the captioning on. That way I get everything the first time rather than rewinding to re-listen to dialogue. It also keeps me from having to yo-yo the volume. There is such a contrast between the quiet parts of a movie (dialogue) and the loud parts (explosions, dramatic music, etc.) that it drives me nuts.
posted by EV on 9-3-2009 at 11:33 am
I need to send this article to anyone who ever asks what goes on at my job and to people who ask “Why are the captions all jumbled and messed up sometimes?”
posted by Eve on 9-3-2009 at 11:50 am
From time to time I use the captioning for exactly what EV is talking about above, but for TV shows too. One tip: don’t use it for Jeopardy! – it totally ruins the answers (questions).
posted by Bert on 9-3-2009 at 11:59 am
I use CC a lot for movies and TV (as others have said). One thing I noticed though, is that when I’m watching HD content, the captions never show up. As more and more channels convert to HD, I love the picture but am sad to see the CC go. Maybe it’s just a bug with my HDTV, anyone know?
posted by Dan H on 9-3-2009 at 12:09 pm
I have a (bad) habit of proofreading everything I see, from my days in editing, I guess. Since reading this, though, I will (try to) be less critical of real time close captioners. They don’t need my snarky comments to know when they have made an error. Sometimes it’s not exactly their fault, apparently!
posted by Hyacinth on 9-3-2009 at 12:20 pm
Um, why would deaf people want to (or be qualified to) vote on who was a better singer?
posted by Jon. on 9-3-2009 at 12:20 pm
Jon.: Now that is the six-million dollar question. However, if the law says that all shows on the big networks have to have closed captioning, then American Idol does too. Funny, sometimes it seems like the deaf are judging the show….not to be callous.
posted by Jamie on 9-3-2009 at 12:33 pm
I’d love to see your thoughts and analysis of captioning as it exists (or doesn’t exist) on streaming video on the Internet, which seems to be the wave of everything that used to play on broadcast TV. A lot of stuff that’s captioned on TV ISNT captioned when rebroadcast on the Internet. Hulu, etc. An analysis of why would be great!
Thanks,
Marlee Matlin
Los Angeles, CA
posted by Marlee Matlin on 9-3-2009 at 12:54 pm
Marlee, I think it’s probably that unless the companies are regulated to do it, they probably won’t. I wish more were captioned, especially older shows, because lots of shows my husband would like to watch are not available with captions online.
I think if more people tried the captions and got used to them, they would find them very helpful for the reasons mentioned above, as well as just being able to catch up on what was said as you engaged in a conversation with someone else. I know, I know, that’s just my ADD talking….
And as for your your question about American Idol: there are other aspects to the show than the singing (for better or worse). Nobody has ever won due to their stage presence or the way they convey their emotions physically?
posted by Jamie on 9-3-2009 at 1:10 pm
Captions that can’t be turned off are generally referred to as open captioning. I’ve seen a few movies in the theater like this.
posted by Josh on 9-3-2009 at 1:33 pm
@(1st) Jamie: Since I don’t watch the show, and since my musical tastes aren’t generally reflected by AI contestants, I’m certainly not qualified to comment on who is judging!
@(2nd) Jamie (same person?): I’m sure they have, but I had always understood (and I don’t watch the show) that singing was at least a big part of the competition, if not the main criteria on which contestants were to be judged.
posted by Jon. on 9-3-2009 at 1:34 pm
I could see captioning of internet video being useful beyond helping the hearing impaired,too. My computer at work isn’t connected to speakers, so most video is pretty useless at work. I’d love some captions.
About captions in general, I can also see them being very very helpful for people who are new to speaking the English language. I comprehend spoken Spanish fairly well, but sometimes when people in a show are talking really fast or there’s a lot of distracting sounds in the scene or they are using some words that I don’t know right off I have difficulty. If I see the words in written text, I can understand them much better. Plus, unfamiliar words in the caption paired with the context of the action on the screen are a great way to learn those new words. I can see it working well the other way around,too. In the area I live in, we have a lot of immigrants for whom English is a second language. I think the captions would really help make English language only broadcasts a lot more enjoyable for them.
posted by Melissa on 9-3-2009 at 1:41 pm
Wow. I just noticed that one of the commenters in this thread is Marlee Matlin. I wonder if that’s the real Marlee Matlin, Oscar winning actress? If that’s her, it’s fascinating that she’s a flosser.
And it would make since for her to take an interest in this thread since she’s deaf and the article is about captions.
posted by Melissa on 9-3-2009 at 1:46 pm
I am hard of hearing so my Closed Captioning is on all the time just a quick question at the end it say closed caption not paid for what does that mean anyone know.
posted by Kari on 9-3-2009 at 2:06 pm
oops
I meant “make sense” not “since”.
I guess I’m not cut out to be a captioner either. LOL
posted by Melissa on 9-3-2009 at 2:18 pm
This was great. Lots of information. Except that the Julia Child show was actually “open captioned,” since the captions couldn’t be turned off (thus they weren’t “closed”).
Did you get a chance to read the DCMP’s timeline of captioning? It’s a PDF. http://www.dcmp.org/caai/nadh25.pdf
And if you want to know more about how to caption, you can check out their “Captioning Key for Educational Media”: http://www.captioningkey.org.
posted by Kelly on 9-3-2009 at 2:26 pm
Oops. Bad link.
That last one should be http://www.captioningkey.org
posted by Kelly on 9-3-2009 at 2:29 pm
Thank you for a great article! Add my family to the few who keep captions on all the time. We have gotten used to guests making comments on seeing the words.
To respond to the HD question, we have the same problem. We can watch great Hi-Def TV withOUT captions, or normal TV WITH captions. Wouldn’t you know we prefer keeping the captions and losing the good picture!
It also is a bonus when you have small children who talk incessantly throughout shows!
posted by Erin on 9-3-2009 at 2:47 pm
The DCMP also has a timeline with the history of audio description interspersed with that of captioning. Visit the DCMP @ Fifty page, and click “Accessibility Time line Highlights” to access this nifty time line.
posted by Thom on 9-3-2009 at 2:53 pm
Very informative article, and I too, like Marlee Matlin, want to know about the future of CC on the Internet. Also, while TV uses the latest CC technology, why can’t they develop captioning for movies in the theater? Wearing a headset is not my idea of fun, nor do they always work. I am hard of hearing and just because something is louder doesn’t mean I will be able to understand what is said. I have discussed ideas with friends on how to create a system that could be attached to the back of a theater seat or some other type of device that could receive CC from the movie.
Also, I think the first sentence of this article should be changed. It makes it sound like CC is something people just happen to come across while watching TV. I need to use it all the time, and I am sure many others do, so it is not just some quirky little option for me. I need it.
posted by Denise on 9-3-2009 at 3:07 pm
My guess would be that in that not too far future when you buy your movie ticket you’ll also get some kind of code you can enter into an App on your Smartphone that will enable it to stream the dialog text (in the language of your choice) to your phone’s screen.
The theater chains or movie studios will probably have proprietary Apps that won’t allow you to save or send it.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 9-3-2009 at 3:29 pm
Ever since I’ve started going to bars I’ve been fascinated by watching ESPN with the closed captioning on. Almost every bar I go to has does this, and yet none of them seem to have noticed that the captioning is complete nonsense. I don’t just mean that they mess up words here and there, the captioning is completely unintelligible. Sometimes it just puts the first 2 of 3 words of each sentence on screen. Sometimes it can’t even produce full words. What the hell is going on with that?
posted by Squirrelgirl on 9-3-2009 at 4:16 pm
I love captioning. I’m hearing impaired, and even with hearing aids, I generally don’t get all of what someone is saying unless I can lip-read. So lots of talky movies and TV shows annoy the crap out of me unless there are captions. The only time they annoy me is when the text is clearly different from what is actually being said. Sometimes the text is altered for ease of reading or worse, sanitized of curse words and such.
posted by Rachel on 9-3-2009 at 4:24 pm
I would be willing to bet that the reason so much of the content online lacks captioning is due to the way in which it is encoded. Generally speaking most encoders strip the information contained on line 21 in standard definition and it is most likely the case that it strips the meta data channel when HD is being captured.
Or if an HD master is being captured in a Down Conversion to Standard Definition it is highly unlikely that the captions would pass unless another device were being used to convert the meta data signal to a video signal to be read across line 21. That doesn’t even address whether your viewer has a decoding capability. I would guess that we will see more captions online as the technology to accomodate it becomes more available.
posted by Meg on 9-3-2009 at 9:37 pm
I love captions and captioning. Thanks for a great article.
Finding more and more independent people taking up the cause of:
1. Captioning internet videos for others
2. Taking up the cause of the bill currently in Congress to make internet captions a law.
(see captions.org, search google for Caption Action 2)
posted by Bill Creswell on 9-4-2009 at 1:51 am
There is actually a debate in the deaf & hard of hearing communities about the content displayed in the captions. There tends to be a habit to edit what is said in the captions (i.e. “darn” not “damn”) or just forgo the curse words entirely. This is not fair and should be changed. Who is the steno-captioner to decide what words or sounds to show the people who need captions? What ever is said or heard should be relayed in full through the closed captions.
posted by Kelly on 9-4-2009 at 9:46 am
PartiallyDeflected – From your lips to an inventor’s ears.
My brother and his wife are both deaf and love movies. They’ve never been able to go to the theater to see a show. Until someone invents some type of ap like you describe, they will always have to wait for DVD–although nowadays they don’t have to wait as long…!!!
posted by Fran on 9-4-2009 at 11:10 am
I have to sleep with the tv on, but husband hates it, so I use CC when I turn the volume down for him. A fun way to watch South Park, since CC tells you exactly what Kenny is saying underneath the snow suit.
posted by Kimberly on 9-4-2009 at 12:47 pm
Yet another non-hearing-impaired person who uses captioning or subtitles (my husband got me going on that, and his hearing is normal too). Tremendously helpful when there’s a lot of background noise (onscreen or in the living room), actors are not enunciating clearly, etc.
posted by Seanette on 9-5-2009 at 12:36 pm
I agree that it would be great for those who can’t hear to be able to enjoy a movie in the theater, but the idea of streaming the captions to a personal device seems like it would defeat the purpose. I sometimes have trouble focusing on the picture when the words are right there at the bottom of the screen; I imagine glancing back and forth between the big screen and the captioning device would be tiresome after a while.
posted by Anthony on 9-5-2009 at 3:23 pm
EV, what’s your problem ? So what that the sound gets a little louder for a few seconds ? Deal with it. People are way too soft, nowdays.
posted by Spottedfeather on 9-7-2009 at 3:22 pm
Very good deal here. I use CC and the new SDH. About 95% of DVDS and shows are CC are SDH. The only thing now is. Block Buster and NetFlix still do not get it. With there watch now online deal. They do not put the CC are SDH on.. And yes they can do it. They just do not want to put the time into it. Sad deal if you ask me!!!!
posted by SegaRolow on 9-7-2009 at 4:55 pm
Here in Canada, for a short while i watched a game show with the captioning on to increase my chances of understanding what’s being said, because i can process written French easier than spoken. For the Wonder Woman DVDs I took to turning on the captions when the cutesy robot introduced in season 2 spoke because I found its high-pitched accent hard to understand. While not deaf myself I used to work with deaf colleages, so I’m glad most DVDs these days have close-captioning/sub-titles.
posted by Andy E Nystrom on 9-7-2009 at 8:47 pm
Oh, and has anyone else noticed the irony that, as part of a spam prevention process, you have to quote hard to read, wavy-looking words below in order to post a comment? :)
posted by Andy E Nystrom on 9-7-2009 at 8:50 pm
In Sweden we don’t have this system at all (to my knowledge). We use “teletext” to text some Swedish programs, but foreign/english programs are always texted.
But what I don’t understand is why this CC technique has lived on to DVD’s? The DVD’s has a technique to text movies & TV programs in different languages, but yet some DVD ONLY have CC text (which means that people like me, can’t display them)? Can someone explain why it is like this? You would think that if you have the text saved in some digital format it would be easy to transfer it to another and create “real” DVD text?
posted by Håkan on 9-8-2009 at 3:21 am
Kelly,
You wrote: “Who is the steno-captioner to decide what words or sounds to show the people who need captions?”
As a stenocaptioner, I can tell you I happen to agree with you; however, captioning companies put policy in place to handle obscenities, and after the Janet Jackson Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction, the FCC (and the country) took a conservative turn and threatened to fine broadcasters.
It is, unfortunately, a very sensitive issue. Some people are extremely offended by certain words. It’s very unfortunate that we live in a society that feels so threatened by words.
Keep complaining!
Jennifer Bonfilio
http://www.njcaptions.com
posted by Jennifer Bonfilio on 9-8-2009 at 11:05 am