[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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