Tell me this! Maybe I sound dum?

Question

When they do closed caption on the television, I'm totally fascinated by it. How in the world do they do it? Where (in what facility) is the person who is typing it? I know it's live because they make mistakes and correct them on the spot. I'm not a young person but I just can't figure it out.

Answer 1

It is never dumb to ask a question.



Closed captioning is embedded in the television signal and becomes visible when you use a special decoder, either as a separate appliance or built into a television set. The captions are hidden in the line 21 data area found in the vertical blanking interval of the television signal.



Closed captioning for a live broadcast is very similar to court reporting -- stenocaptioners use a special keyboard to write what they hear as they hear it. Stenocaptioners are often capable of writing at speeds of up to 250 words a minute -- much faster than even the fastest typists.



The typed words then go into a computer system, where they are translated into text and commands. Captioning software then converts the text into the captions which are then sent to a caption encoder. The results are what you see on the television screen, typos and all.



These sites will give you much more information about closed captioning.

Answer 2

Closed captioning for live broadcast is performed at the broadcast facility. Basically, there is a transcriptionist who listens to the broadcast and types what he/she hears. So yes, that process is prone to errors.



Closed captioning for recorded programs is generally performed at a specialized post-production facility. There should be few if any errors in this type of captioning because the captions can be reviewed and edited.

Answer 3

From the tv studios, the reason that it looks like it's so fast is that because there is a 5 second delay on live things incase something goes wrong.

Answer 4

I do not think they do it live, and its a computer mistake not a persons mistake. You can turn your tv to closed caption at anytime so how would a person automatically know to jump on an start typing, plus everybodys tv's run at different times. And the reason the computer will mistake some words is because its programmed to recognize the word and it sometimes interprets a word wrong, and is programmed to fix the mistake.

Answer 5

You know - I wondered the same thing myself! Glad you asked. Danzinger sounds like he knows what he's talking about!



I think some of the mis-types are hilarious! ;-)

Answer 6

Its probably at the network headquarters.

Answer 7

Fast fingers.

Answer 8

Please, before you ask if you sound dumb, please learn how to spell it. That way you won't seem dumb.