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

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Fri Apr 7 21:15:26 UTC 2006


On Apr 7, 2006, at 3:00 PM, Jeff Simpson wrote:

>
> Oh, no, I definitely didn't mean to berate them on the errors, I just
> mean that errors are unavoidable, so you really can't rely on the text
> for anything that requires it to be perfect (like parsing for
> particular words or anything). I'm not sure that the errors I note are
> from the captioners or from the transmission - I've noticed even on
> plain-old-tv that sometimes noise gets in in a way where it's not
> likely to be an actual typo.

I wasn't referring to what you said when I made that statement. When  
I worked for TV stations we used to get a *lot* of calls complaining  
about errors though.

Errors come from all sorts of sources. You should see what a mis- 
adjusted VTR can do to them, and I don't even want to discuss what a  
VHS machine can do. The analog method of putting data on line 21 in  
an AM system is very susceptible to noise.

Another "fun" thing is when a non-captioned commercial doesn't issue  
a "clear" command at the start, you can be left with the last caption  
from the previous program hanging on-screen. Even if your production  
is not captioned you should always issue "clears" at the beginning  
and when returning from breaks.

Sometimes this is humorous, I once saw "He's Lying" or something like  
that overtop a very serious announcer selling something :-)

Your main point is correct though, they are certainly not reliable  
enough for a "censorship" system, even if such a system was desirable  
in the first place.

>
>> 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 ?
>
> I can barely keep track of what one person says when they are talking
> to me unless I'm interested in the subject :-P

Yeah, can you imagine being assigned to caption a Presidential speech  
or something? Probably assigned as a disciplinary measure for mis- 
behaving operators.


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