Caption Quality
By Hamlin, Lise; Hearing Loss Magazine, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 36-37Publication Date: March/April 2009
Article discusses problems with the quality of closed captioning on television. Captioning is defined as word-for-word text of the audio portion of a video or film shown directly on the screen, usually at the bottom. As of January 1, 2006 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required almost all new English-language programming to be captioned. The article discusses common problems with the quality of television captions, including text that is garbled or lags behind the audio, overlapping displays, and captions that bounce around or fill the screen, problems that have increased with the introduction of digital television. Sources of the quality problems identified include (1) FiOS, cable, and satellite installers, who may not know how to turn on the captions; (2) manufacturers and service providers, who often fail to include written instructions on how to make the connections work; and (3) broadcasters, who may send out a signal without a decodable caption. Advice to consumers encountering caption problems includes contacting local broadcasters and the FiOS, satellite, or cable company by phone or e-mail when bad captions occur, writing the caption companies and their advertisers, and, if there is no solution, writing the FCC (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/tips_on_filing_cc_complaint.html/) about the problem.
Published by: Hearing Loss Association of America (formerly Self Help for Hard of Hearing People) (Website:http://www.hearingloss.org)
