It seems that television production is always finished at the very last minute.  No matter how many times goodhearted producers attempt to get ahead of schedule, something unexpected happens and the race against the clock begins.  Almost everyone producing TV content has a story about racing to the FedEx dropbox before the final pickup of the day.  Hopefully these tips will help you avoid making your own dropbox story this year.

During the holidays, additional factors come into play that can leave even the most prepared production team scrambling.  How do we know?  We live it.  During every holiday season, requests for “rush” closed captioning projects increase dramatically.  Although we are happy to help our customers in a pinch, we thought we might serve them better by helping them before panic sets in.  So here’s our list of five tips to help you plan.

• 1- Know Your Station’s Traffic Deadlines. The kind folks who receive, log, ingest and error check your program prior to air usually have days off during the holiday season.  But because the broadcasting of television programming gets no break during the holiday, the traffic department has to prepare all the programs in advance.  This means that they need your show sooner than usual.  A simple phone call or email to the station will help you determine how soon your program needs to arrive.  Be proactive – don’t wait for them to contact you. By asking questions in advance, you can prevent that surprise call that your tape is due tomorrow.
• 2- Make Sure Your Entire Team Is on Board. Producing television usually involves the effort of many people.  In order to reduce stress, make sure you set realistic goals and deadlines for production and over-communicate those deadlines to your team.  Assuring the entire team understands the “big picture” and is on board with the vision will help reduce last minute pressure.
• 3- Don’t Rush. Whenever there is a tight deadline, it is easy to fall into the trap of rushing through it.  Too many times, however, this mistake will cost more time and money in the long run.  Take the necessary time to check your program content, audio / video levels, audio phase, closed captioning, time-code, slates, etc.  A mistake in any of these areas could result in mistakes on the air or rejection from the station, which may require either rushing a new tape or missing your airplay.
• 4- Expect Shipping Delays. UPS and FedEx experience peak demand during the holidays.  This year, UPS alone expects more than 25 million shipments a day, through Christmas.  Although the increase is anticipated, the large number of packages being shipped around the country means higher chances that your package may not be delivered on time.  FedEx and UPS suspend their “on time” guarantees during the holidays, so don’t expect the same delivery time in December that you receive in June.  If you normally use ground service, ship your package a day earlier or plan on upgrading to an “air” service.  If you already use a Next Day service, remember most morning delivery timeframes are no longer guaranteed, so make sure afternoon is acceptable with your station.  For FedEx Holiday Schedule, click here.  For UPS Holiday Schedule, click here.
• 5- Confirm With The Station. Lastly, it’s always a good idea to confirm with the station that your program has been received and it is acceptable for broadcast.  Because things are very busy before the holidays, waiting for the station to contact you about a problem may mean that you won’t have ample time to create a fix.

This holiday season is a great time to celebrate with friends, family and co-workers.  A little preparation ahead of time can prevent unneeded stress and late nights at the office.  We hope you put these tips to use and have a safe and fun holiday.

Merry Christmas!

A great example of the importance of closed captions is evident in the athletic stadium experience.  In addition to the excitement generated by a big game or event, there are typically many media elements added to enhance the overall experience.  Whether it is musical performances, creative videos, highlight replays, or general public address announcements, stadium and arena officials work hard to make events more enjoyable for everyone in attendance.

Just as it is important to provide equal access to media that is available via television or the Internet, it is just as important for media to be accessible to everyone in attendance at a game or similar live event.

Fortunately, there is a growing trend in which stadiums have started to include live captions on the video screens of their scoreboards.  Over the past few years, there have been several lawsuits against professional sports teams and public universities due to a lack of accessibility at live events for people that are hard-of-hearing.  Under the framework of the Americans with Disabilities Act, many lawsuits were upheld and several stadiums are now required to provide captions on their scoreboards or JumboTrons.

Looking beyond legal battles and the actions that athletics teams and universities have been legally required to do, there is a very positive side aspect of the growing trend of live stadium captions.  Many stadiums and arenas now voluntarily provide captions for music and other elements that are played over the public address system.  While some organizations may simply be focusing on avoiding legal trouble, many stadiums are not legally required to provide captions at this time, which means they are providing captions for the primary purpose of access rather than out of obligation.

One can only hope that more and more stadiums and similar venues continue to provide captions not just as a result of a lawsuit, but for the sake of providing equal access to everyone in attendance.

As closed captions become more readily available beyond just the television set, what are some areas that you think could use improvement for greater access?

Perhaps what is even more exciting, though, is the use of new technological advances in providing greater accessibility to those who need it the most. Over the course of many years, for example, closed captioning has become more and more readily available as a result of gradual improvements in technology.

More recently, there have been additional technological breakthroughs that have provided greater accessibility to people with disabilities. A good example of this can be found in a new service offered by Clear Captions, a company that is certified by the FCC to provide telephone captions for hard-of-hearing people.

Rather than missing important portions of telephone conversations, or even not being able to communicate on the phone at all, people that are hard-of-hearing can now use Clear Captions to see a complete transcript of what the person on the other line is saying to them.

This important new tool is available to anyone who has a phone and a computer with an Internet connection. The phone captioning service offered by Clear Captions is free for all qualified users and the software is available for use on a MAC, PC, and even an iPad or iPod. Users can even get their captions on the go with the free app available for the iPhone.

As exciting as these kinds of technological advances are, it is still important to note the limitations facing most new technologies while they are in developmental infancy. Specifically, the use of voice recognition software for automated captions has yet to demonstrate a consistent ability to provide accurate captions for video content.

This issue has been addressed previously in this blog, but it certainly bears repeating. Until voice recognition and automation show improvements in its accuracy, captioning of video content, especially in regards to televised or web-based video, should be left to a professional captioning company that can provide the accuracy and accessibility that all people deserve.

As for the phone captioning service provided by Clear Captions, time will tell how well the service performs. In the meantime, though, it is certainly an exciting new option to create accessibility for hard-of-hearing people. Technological advances will continue to progress at a rapid pace and, hopefully, will result in continual improvement in making various forms of media and communication more accessible to everyone.

Adding closed captioning to your TV show in the edit suite just became a little easier. Thanks to new methods using Final Cut Pro and a supported AJA video card, there has been a revolution in the way captions are encoded.

The benefits are huge!

HD Workflow

In an HD environment, the captions can be added to the VANC.  This means that the program can be exported to tape with true HD (CEA-708) captions without the use of an external encoder. HD encoders usually cost about $7,500, so this represents a tremendous savings over purchasing an encoder. Because the captions can be exported right in the edit suite, all your files for captioning can be transferred over the Internet—no more “overnight” tape shipments, and no more shipping related costs or delays when a shipment is misrouted.

SD Workflow

Adding Line 21 (CEA-608) captions to your SD project can now be easily done right from the FCP7 print to tape or edit to tape menu. The key advantage over other methods is ability to do this without rendering, resulting in several recouped hours per program.

How it works

The show is edited as usual in the Final Cut Pro edit suite. Once the show is complete, the editor renders a preview file to send to the captioning firm. Once the captions have been created, the file is e-mailed back to the editor.  The editor selects the file inside the print to tape or edit to tape menus and masters the final program to tape.

This new technology was developed through the cooperative effort of AJA, Final Cut Pro and CPC. Final Cut Pro does not offer a direct way to create and format captions for broadcast, so it is very common for producers to utilize the help of a closed captioning firm to complete this task. Currently, this technology is limited to captioning firms who offer captions created on CPC software. When selecting a firm, it is important to look at quality, cost, experience and turn-around time. Forging a partnership with a firm that can provide just the right mix will mean a savings in time and money for the program producers, and an excellent finished product.

For a how-to guide to adding closed captions in Final Cut Pro 7, visit: www.captionlabs.com/fcp

For generations, tape and video have worked hand in hand.  Since the very first video picture was seen on a black and white monitor, we’ve needed a way to record and store the images we create. Live shots are great, but when we developed the ability to play them back later, we opened the door to tremendous freedom and creativity.

So in the early 1950’s, videotape recordings began. Since then, videotape has changed in many ways. As the technology of tape (and recording methods) evolved, the quality increased and the size of the tape decreased.  Any veteran of TV production can recall the whirl of 2” reel-to-reel Quad machines as they shuttled to their next cue. Compare that to today’s mini-DV tapes that can hold an entire hour of video in a pocket-sized shell, and it’s like another world.

Each new leap seems like we’ve finally reached perfection, but the progress doesn’t stop. Technology is once again changing the way we record, store, and play back our media.  Since video has transitioned into the digital realm, the ability to store gigabits of ones and zeros on ever-evolving media is growing rapidly.

The reasons are pretty obvious. High capacity media like hard disks, thumb drives and SD cards are much more affordable than tape. They are also faster – instead of copying footage in real-time, digital storage allows transfer of files at much higher speeds. Speaking of saving time, when the media is in a digital file form, media can now be edited immediately—goodbye capturing. And of course, there’s no need to purchase expensive equipment like extra VTRs.

Several years ago, a client came to me with a question that made us think outside the box.  He’s a small producer, airing in a couple local markets.  He hasn’t invested in the expensive TV gear, but his station required the show be delivered in BetacamSP.  It wasn’t long after talking with him that we worked out a solution so he could deliver his shows to us on a hard disk.  We took care of everything else: closed-captioning, duplication to BetacamSP, and fulfillment to the TV station.

In that moment, I realized that the old mindset of tape was soon going to be replaced.  Sure enough, it wasn’t long before I began noticing other tapeless solutions develop.  From Sony’s XD-CAM to the AJA Ki Pro to Panasonic P2, one look at today’s marketplace and you’ll see that tape is “old news” for acquisition.

By this point, maybe you’re asking what this has to do with closed captioning. To be honest, it has more to do with how content will be delivered to stations in the future. I think that this revolution we are experiencing with acquisition, editing, and storage will soon migrate over to station playout, as well.  I’ve heard reports of some stations already beginning to accept delivery of programming on a hard disk or thumb drive.  I also foresee that as available Internet bandwidth increases, stations will begin accepting full-length programs via FTP.

As we witnessed in the audio industry, the days of the videotape may be numbered.  Production and program delivery of today and of the future will require new tricks and new ways to be effective, accurate and efficient. When it comes to your productions, make sure your entire team is ready to adapt, because before you know it, even our most familiar tools will be a thing of the past.

So amid the outcry for captioning on the internet, the world’s leader in online videos decided to do something about it.  In November 2009, YouTube unveiled new technology that will automatically add closed-captions to videos.  Currently, this service is limited to educational and Google videos. However, expectations are that it will soon be offered to many more videos and eventually to everyone.

Another feature that was introduced is the ability for the user to automatically time text to their YouTube video.  All the user has to do is upload the text with the video and the voice-recognition software completes all the timing.

Google, Inc. has also introduced CaptionTube [link], which allows users to create and add timed captions to their YouTube videos completely free of charge.

Google admits that the automated captions will have errors. This should be expected because of many factors, including audio quality and the speaker’s accent or varied pronunciation of words.  But even with these errors, this still is a powerful breakthrough for internet videos.

The benefits to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community are almost as endless as the number of videos on YouTube.  Although no computer voice recognition software, no matter how advanced, can work better than an actual human transcriber, this innovative technology accomplishes a great leap forward in the way we watch videos on the internet.

More Information from Google.

Well, here’s a little tip that may save your small business some money.  If you have closed captioned programming, you may be eligible to receive a tax credit for providing accessibility to persons with disabilities.  It’s called the Disabled Access Credit and is reported on IRS form 8826.

Your small business could qualify to receive a tax credit of up to half of your closed-captioning expenses.  Do the math.  If you’ve closed-captioned a weekly show, you may have up to $5,000 in tax credits.  Of course, every situation is different, so you need to consult a tax professional to see if your situation qualifies.

Here’s some info as provided by the U.S. Department of Labor.

What is it?
Small businesses may take an annual tax credit for making their businesses accessible to persons with disabilities.

Who is eligible?
Small businesses are eligible if they, in the previous year, earned a maximum of $1 million in revenue or had 30 or fewer full-time employees.

What is the amount?
The credit is 50% of expenditures over $250, not to exceed $10,250, for a maximum benefit of $5,000. The credit amount is subtracted from the total tax liability.