[mythtv-users] Caption Operators, was: 'Censoring' decoding 'bad' words off of Closed Captioning

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Fri Apr 7 20:44:13 UTC 2006


On Apr 7, 2006, at 2:06 PM, Jeff Simpson wrote:

>> My personal opinion is that it is a wasted effort. Who are you trying
>> to protect ?? Even if it is kids, they are going to encounter such
>> language in the real world and are better served by being educated as
>> to what such language is, that it is improper in most cases etc.
>>
>> If the children are really too young to be exposed to such language,
>> then they shouldn't be watching TV without direct parental guidance
>> in any case. For people of that age, TV should be for education and
>> not a babysitter.
>>
>> Just my opinion though, and since I do not have any kids it's
>> probably not worth much :-)
>
> Plus, in my experience, CC is often riddled with typos and the like
> (since it's hand-typed), so you'd need to do a lot more than just look
> for the F word, you'd have to look for any combination of symbols and
> other noise in the word, and there's a good chance it would be missed
> or paraphrased anyway.
>

Just in case you're interested:

"Live" captions are not hand-typed in the way you are thinking. They  
are inputted to a computer using the same type of keyboard that's  
used by court stenographers, using a phonetic alphabet.

Software then translates this into written language, using context  
and some very complex proprietary algorithms. Since the input is  
phonetic "to", "too", "two" and "2" are the same, it can be difficult  
to tell the difference.

Most software used for this purpose is customized for the individual  
operator's "style", and has a "dictionary" that is customized by the  
owner as well. The special dictionaries that can be bought are pretty  
heavy with legal terms for obvious reasons, words encountered in TV  
newscasts can be strange and unique, just look at the names during a  
UN council or Olympic event. The networks actually have dictionaries  
of commonly-used people and place names, but local stations often do  
not have that luxury.

Unfortunately the final operation for a court reporter is to proof- 
read the document and correct any errors, a step that of necessity is  
left out of live captioning.

Things are getting better. At some TV stations the scripts for the  
evening's newscast (yes, there are scripts) are downloaded by the  
caption operator and loaded into his or her computer, but that can  
work against you when there are last minute changes, and not  
everything is pre-scripted.

Interestingly captioning is often done by teams of two operators, as  
it can be a very exhausting job. It's interesting to watch them  
handing off from one to another with violent head nods, because their  
hands are busy and they don't want to talk and perhaps cause  
something to not be heard.

Captioning is often done by operators from  their homes, using a  
telephone feed of the station audio unless they are in the same City  
as the station.

I hear folks gripe about the inaccuracy of captions, but it is an  
incredibly difficult job. Most operators could make a lot more money  
working in a courtroom with nights and weekends off. Let's give them  
the credit they deserve.

One qualification test I'm aware of for recorders consisted of 20  
minutes of four people speaking at an average rate of 180 words-per- 
minute. Not only did you have to get what was said correct, but who  
said it. The permitted error rate was 2%. How many of us could do that ?

No, I am not a caption operator, but I do know several. Interestingly  
every one that I have known was a woman, though I am sure there are  
some males in the field.

Next Week: Chyron Operators, you see their work every day and  
probably never heard of them.


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