ARG commercials!!!

[Your Mom]

I am hearing and I have noticed something, I leave captioning on at all times even when my girlfriend is not around. At the end of most every TV show you hear an announcers voice that comes up and says "This programing has been sponsored for closed captioning by the following" and then it will cut straight to a few commercials.

I think that

1) its crazy that when the announcer is saying that this program has been made available to the hearing impaired by the following companies, that it does not say that in closed captioning.

2) it is crazy that those very commercials from the companys that are paying for a program to have captioning NEVER have captions for their commercials.

I just can not understand why so many commercials refuse to have captioning, commercials even to hearing people are often very vague, sometimes hard to follow and sometimes even with all the sound in the world you still have no clue what they are trying to sell. Do they think that deaf people do not buy their products? Why refuse captioning, if they are going to be the ones paying for other programs to have captioning.

does anyone understand what im talking about or am i just sounding crazy?

 

[Taric25]

Oprah

Oh, my friends and I had a good laugh, when we were watching Oprah. She announced, "Closed Captioning paid for my the makers of the following product," which was captioned, and then the commercials of that product had no captions!

Get this, I even saw one commercial for a hearing aid, that had no captions, but I wasn't shocked. The commercial had open captions, such as bullet points, and text that scrolled across the screen, for everything the announcer said. Why don't more commercials have open captions? Think about it, the announcer says a phone number to "call now", and the number is also shown on the screen. Simultanious text and audio grab your attention more than audio alone, so why not?

The funniest thing is, though, I love how some commercials use closed captions to reach out to their Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing consumers. For example, the announcer will say, "Call the number on your screen..." but the caption will read

"CALL THE NUMBER ON YOUR SCREEN.
TDD 1-800..."

or Sprint/Nextel's cell phone commerials. Have you seen those captions? At the end of every Sprint/Nextel commercial, the announcer is silent, but the captions read,

"Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing visit
www.sprintrelay.com"

I find it hilarious.

 

[Your Mom]

Its just absurd. My biggest rant has to be with the news stations such as cnn, fox, and msnbc, all of which have incredibly sketchy closed captioning. If any at all.

I also cant figure out whats going on when all you see with closed captioning is ############ is the person typing having a seizure? Whats going on? And as well I have noticed even with TV shows that are not live and have been pre-recorded so the person typing the closed captioning has ample time to sit and slowly type and edit everything that is being captioned they still end up missing entire sentences, words are jumbled into huge messes, things are said that are not really said.

As well I have noticed that sometimes they will say a curse word on in speech and its not edited out, but the closed captioning edits it. I have seen that both way, the closed captioning will sometimes type a word that has ben edited out.

Also with movies that have been 'edited' for tv time. While watching the movie, it seems like they just edited the movie, not the captioning, so you end up with the captions for the full length movie so your looking at captions that totally dont match at all whats being said.

 

[Taric25]

I also cant figure out whats going on when all you see with closed captioning is ############ is the person typing having a seizure? Whats going on?

sometimes they will say a curse word on in speech and its not edited out, but the closed captioning edits it. I have seen that both way, the closed captioning will sometimes type a word that has ben edited out.

There's also this guy on AllDeaf who types curse words. When he types them, he doesn't edit them out, but the AllDeaf message board edits it out. What's up with that?

Seriously, though, I have noticed that as well. On a recent airing of The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, Jamie was speaking with an accent, and he was holding a cat. He said, "pussy," meaning cat, not the swear word. It wasn't beeped out, but the captions said "[BEEP]".

And as well I have noticed even with TV shows that are not live and have been pre-recorded so the person typing the closed captioning has ample time to sit and slowly type and edit everything

The captionist often does not have time to time the captions. Timing takes about 8 to 10 hours per half hour of footage.

Also with movies that have been 'edited' for tv time. While watching the movie, it seems like they just edited the movie, not the captioning, so you end up with the captions for the full length movie so your looking at captions that totally dont match at all whats being said.

One time, I was with a Blind friend of mine, and we were watching TV. (Well, he was listening to it, and I was describing what was on the screen.) I was able to predict what I was describing for him, since the captions were actually a few seconds ahead of the people's speech.

If you enjoy the comedy in caption errors, subscribe to SignNews from CSD (Communication Services of the Deaf). They have a column in their comics section that shows recent caption errors. One in particular, when Allen Greenspan was in the hospital for his prostate, the captionist typed "prostitute" on CNN. Greenspan's wife, who works for CNN, said, "He should be so lucky."

 

[Hear Again]

The funniest thing is, though, I love how some commercials use closed captions to reach out to their Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing consumers. For example, the announcer will say, "Call the number on your screen..." but the caption will read

This is a little bit off the topic of captions, but as a deafblind (totally blind/deaf with bilateral CIs) television viewer, it annoys me to no end when announcers say, "Call the number on your screen" but don't verbally announce the phone number! It's not like I have a sighted person at my disposal 24/7 to provide this information. What's so difficult about reading the phone number and how long does it take to do so? A few seconds? Okay, time to step off my soapbox.

 

[Taric25]

DeafBlind TV

This is a little bit off the topic of captions, but as a deafblind (totally blind/deaf with bilateral CIs) television viewer

I was talking about TV for DeafBlind with a Hard-of-Hearing/Sighted friend of mine. I figured that any TV programs broadcast verbatim, simulcast over the radio, could be DeafBlind accessible, as long program has closed captions.

By the way, how do you watch TV? Do you listen to it, or do you read the closed captions with a dynamic braille display?

I know the Media Access Group at the WGBH has a list of programs that are brodcast on tv with DVS (Descriptive Video Service), but I don't know if they caption both the audio and the description. Maybe CC1 has just the audio and either CC2 or CC3 has collated text?

To find a listing of the latest DVS Home Video titles available or to find a listing of television programs broadcast with DVS call 1-800-333-1203 (voice), or to request a request Braille catalog, call 1-888-818-1181 (voice).

 

[Hear Again]

Taric,

I watch TV by listening to it with my CIs. Unfortunately, I don't always have a sighted person who can explain what is happening on the screen, so when I don't have a sighted friend around, I try to watch movies or television programs that have more dialogue and little action.

Before I lost my hearing, I used to enjoy watching DVS videos. It is my understanding that DVS videos are also captioned, but I am not certain. This would be a good question to ask Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP):

DCMP

Currently there is no way for a deafblind person to read TV captions with a Braille display. However, back in the 80's, there used to be a device for the deafblind which translated TV captions into Braille by using a Tellatouch (Braille TTY). One caveat to using this device was that TV programs had to be pre-recorded onto VCR tapes in order for the captioning to be displayed in Braille.

To my knowledge (I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong), there is no way for a deafblind person to read television captions with a Braille display.

 

[Taric25]

Taric,

I watch TV by listening to it with my CIs. Unfortunately, I don't always have a sighted person who can explain what is happening on the screen, so when I don't have a sighted friend around, I try to watch movies or television programs that have more dialogue and little action..

I have a Hearing Blind friend, that watches a little too much TV. Anyway, I asked him, "Nader, why do you always watch Sanford and Son and all those old shows on Nick at Nite, TV Land and Me TV. Isn't that boring?" "Well, Taric, I don't know what the new shows look like, but I saw at least a few episodes of all the old TV shows, before I became Blind, so I have a better idea of what's going on," he answered. I convinced him that we should watch something else, and I would describe it. We watched an episode of Yes, Dear, and I turned on the captions. In the episode, Jimmy Hughes, played by Mike O'Malley, took his son to a club focused on Native American traditions. It was time for them to pick names for themselves. His son asked, "Can I be Silver Fox?" "Sure," answered the leader. Jimmy asked, "Can be Red Fox?" "Sure," answered the leader. "You just dumb, son. You just dumb," joked Jimmy. Nader began to laugh hysterically, and I looked at the captions. "[Imitating Redd Foxx of Sanford and Son]".

Before I lost my hearing, I used to enjoy watching DVS videos.

Do you not enjoy them now?

It is my understanding that DVS videos are also captioned, but I am not certain.

DVS videos, that I've seen, are captioned, but only the audio is captioned. The video description is not captioned. I guess they assume their audience is only Blind, not DeafBlind.

To my knowledge (I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong), there is no way for a deafblind person to read television captions with a Braille display.

I know there's a program that allows Line 21 captions, TV closed captions, to be downloaded onto the computer. You could then intergrate them into the video file.

 

[Hear Again]

Do you not enjoy them now?

I haven't watched a DVS video since receiving my CIs. However, I'm interested in ordering a few now that DCMP carries them.

Like your hearing-blind friend, I also like watching older TV shows because many of them had more dialogue than action. Many of today's TV programs (with the exception of sitcoms) contain more action than dialogue.

 

[Hear Again]

Do you not enjoy them now?

I haven't watched a DVS video since receiving my CIs. However, I'm interested in ordering a few now that DCMP carries them.

Like your hearing-blind friend, I also like watching older TV shows because many of them had more dialogue than action. Many of today's TV programs (with the exception of sitcoms) contain more action than dialogue.

 

[Hear Again]

Sorry for the double post!