First Meeting of Technical Working Group on Captioning and Video Description<\/p>\n
Part One<\/p>\n
By Cheryl Heppner 5\/19\/09<\/p>\n
Yesterday I attended the first meeting of the new Federal Communications
\nCommission (FCC) Technical Working Group which is to conduct an assessment
\nof closed captioning and video description technical issues associated with
\nthe switch to digital television and recommend solutions to any technical
\nproblems.<\/p>\n
The Bottom Line<\/p>\n
First the good news. The industry representatives were open, receptive and
\noften very engaged as we raised various captioning issues and concerns, and
\nthe FCC staff was very helpful at moving things forward. As a result of
\nthis meeting, the working group has set up four subcommittees to address
\nclosed captioning areas:<\/p>\n
1. Development of a form to diagnose captioning problems<\/p>\n
2. Lessons learned from solving captioning problems and \u201cunsolved
\nmysteries\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Consumer focus group (to look at information available and
\nimprovements to make complex things simple)<\/p>\n
4. The HD connection (HDMI, Blu-Ray, other consumer equipment) \u2013
\nfinding explanations for what is going on and coming back with potential
\nsolutions<\/p>\n
In addition, there seemed to be consensus by the industry reps that they
\nwanted a database or other mechanism to share information with each other to
\nmore easily troubleshoot captioning problems.<\/p>\n
Co-Chairs of the working group are Catherine Seidel, head of the Consumer
\nand Governmental Affairs Bureau and Julius Knapp, Chief of the Office of
\nEngineering and Technology. Several other FCC staff also attended to
\nobserve. The turnout by members named by the FCC to participate in the
\nworking group was high; in fact I don\u2019t know any reps who did not
\nparticipate in person or by call-in. All three consumer representatives
\nwere there \u2013 me representing NVRC , Karen Peltz Strauss for the FCC Consumer
\nAdvisory Committee, and Eric Bridges for American Council for the Blind.
\nThe industry representatives were a broad cross-section of those who have a
\nrole in solving captioning and video description challenges — broadcast
\nnetworks, cable companies, trade organizations, captioning and video
\ndescription providers, television and consumer electronic equipment
\nmanufacturers, and captioning equipment manufacturers.<\/p>\n
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The Opening Act<\/p>\n
Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps gave remarks at the opening of the working
\ngroup meeting. He called the establishment of the working group \u201ca no
\nbrainer\u201d and traced its impetus to numerous requests by the FCC\u2019s Consumer
\nAdvisory Committee and consumer organizations. His presentation was
\nfollowed by words from Michael Jacobs of the Consumer and Governmental
\nAffairs Bureau, Cathy Seidel and Julius Knapp. They encouraged the
\nidentification of issues and proposal of solutions, creation of a clearing
\nhouse for information, and an open process to diagnose problems.<\/p>\n
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DTV Help Center Report<\/p>\n
Chris Soukup of CSD reported on the activities of the Digital TV Help Center
\nlaunched in February 2009 under a contract with the FCC to assist deaf, hard
\nof hearing, deaf-blind and speech-disabled consumers as well as hearing
\nrelatives and friends of these consumers. The DTV Help Center offers many
\nways to get help. Since opening, it has amassed these statistics:<\/p>\n
– Unique web visitors: 130,000<\/p>\n
– On-the-ground outreach: 22,720<\/p>\n
– CSD Electronic eNews: 12,592<\/p>\n
– Outreach calls: 10,880<\/p>\n
– Remote installations (English): 851<\/p>\n
– Remote installations (Spanish): 74<\/p>\n
– FaceBook Fans: 1,177<\/p>\n
– MySpace Friends: 434<\/p>\n
– Social Networks: 547<\/p>\n
CSD\u2019s DTV Help Center has been documenting captioning issues and capturing
\ninformation such as whether those with problems use cable, satellite or
\nover-the-air broadcasts and what type of television is used. The top
\ncomplaints identified are:<\/p>\n
1. Captions out of sync with the audio \u2013 65%<\/p>\n
2. Captioned text is garbled \u2013 64%<\/p>\n
3. Captions in the wrong place, mid-screen or cut off on sides \u2013 46%<\/p>\n
4. Captions overlapping or overwriting on each other \u2013 40%<\/p>\n
5. Captions jumping around screen or flashing on and off \u2013 33%<\/p>\n
6. Captions filling up the screen, not just 1-3 rows \u2013 31%<\/p>\n
In addition, 40% of consumers report that problems happen on individual or
\noccasional programs and 37% report problems happen on certain channels.<\/p>\n
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Consumer Perspectives<\/p>\n
Dana Mulvany, a long-time consumer advocate on captioning issues, gave a
\npresentation that touched on numerous issues such as the standard for
\ntransmission of closed captioning data and how different stations handle
\nclosed captioning problems. She spoke from personal experience about the
\ndifficulty in identifying the source of a captioning problem. Some issues
\nshe\u2019s brought to the attention of broadcasters have been fixed but others
\nhave never been resolved, nor have some networks responded to her attempts
\nto correct the problems. Dana also talked about the problems she
\nencountered with a digital TV converter box which could convert captions
\nfrom some stations but not others. As an example, the captions from the
\nBaltimore affiliate for ABC were fine, but captions from the Washington, DC
\naffiliate were sent in a way that was not obtainable until two weeks ago.
\nShe also talked about how new problems arise; after leaving Maryland she
\nreturned months later to discover there were new captioning problems.<\/p>\n
Following Dana\u2019s presentation, I talked about the problems consumers have
\nhad with High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) cable that has become
\nthe choice for digital televisions and other equipment such as set-top boxes
\nand Blu-Ray players. Karen Peltz Strauss followed with her personal
\nexperience to illustrate how difficult it can be for a consumer to find the
\ncaptioning controls and set them up for use with digital television.<\/p>\n
Larry Goldberg of the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) noted that
\nthere is no point-to-point contact for tracking down captioning problems.
\nNCAM\u2019s attempts to help consumers have found that sometimes \u201cuser error\u201d is
\nresponsible, but finding the root of a problem can be exhausting with the
\nmany kinds of equipment, cables, and other variables.<\/p>\n
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Standards for Captioning<\/p>\n
Graham Jones, representing the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB),
\nbelieves that the standards for captioning and carrying captions are sound
\nand that revisions have made necessary corrections. Revised engineering
\nguidelines for implementation of closed captioning are now going through the
\nballot process. His view is that implementation is the key.<\/p>\n
Andy Setos, representing FOX, said that the digital switch has been
\nchallenging. There were tremendous problems with \u201clate captioning.\u201d It was
\ndiscovered that technicians were monitoring the captioning streams but not
\nhow they synchronized with the sound. Live captioning done by contractors
\nwere better synchronized. FOX has stepped up its diligence on quality.
\nThe \u201cshadow transition\u201d has caused upheavals in reliability of captioning,
\nbut things are getting to a point where digital captions can be as reliable
\nas analog ones.<\/p>\n
Larry Goldberg noted that both 608 (analog) and 708 (digital) captions have
\nto be in a signal now, and have been for a long time; 708 captions are
\nderived from 608 captions.<\/p>\n
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Moving Toward Solutions<\/p>\n
At this point Co-Chair Julius Knapp noted that the discussion had identified
\nthat there are problems with how captions are generated, transmitted and
\nreceived. He asked about working on development of a database for the
\nindustry.<\/p>\n
I talked about how consumers wanted action to be taken now to resolve the
\nproblems. Graham Jones spoke in favor of a \u201ccue set\u201d to help consumers
\ntroubleshoot and resolve their problems as an outcome from the working
\ngroup.<\/p>\n
Brian Markwater of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) noted that it
\nis sometimes hard to get the level of detail to troubleshoot. Graham Jones
\ntalked about the closed captioning summit pulled together by Larry Goldberg
\n18 months ago to try to get action on closed captioning issues; due to lack
\nof funding NCAM was unable to follow up. Work has been done by VITAC\u2019s
\nCaptionsOn project and by CSD\u2019s survey, but Karen Strauss noted that the
\nsurveys need to be much more extensive.<\/p>\n
Co-Chair Cathy Seidel asked what other data is being collected by the
\nindustry. Gerald Freda reported that CaptionMax does some follow up on
\nconsumer complaints for programs it has captioned. John Card of Echostar
\nsaid that DISH customers have reported problems and that followup can be
\ncomplicated because the customers may not be watching live programming.
\nAlso consumers don\u2019t always know what box they have. Bob Gabrielli of
\nDirecTV reported that they also find it a challenge that many complaints
\narrive days or weeks after a problem occurred.<\/p>\n
Karen Strauss touched on new rules for the complaint process that will make
\ncomplaint reporting more effective. Under the 1998 rules still in effect,
\nshe noted, someone is supposed to be monitoring captioning for any problems,
\nand that is not meant to be what goes out but what comes into consumer
\nhomes.<\/p>\n
Greg DePriest (NBC) said the network has put a lot of energy into sending
\nthe captions right and asked if there was a set of best practices that could
\nbe used. Brian Markwater found the key is in execution. Cathy Seidel said
\nthe working group is open to development of best practices.<\/p>\n
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Additional Issues — Interoperability<\/p>\n
A whole variety of other problems with design will need to be dealt with,
\nGraham Jones (NAB) reminded the group. The need for a closed captioning
\nbutton without layers of complicated menus is going to have to be resolved
\nby the manufacturers.<\/p>\n
Andy Setos said that it is impossible for FOX to monitor its programs
\ntransmitted by all the cable and satellite companies. The ultimate answer
\nis to design equipment for interoperability. Right now the only solution to
\nproblems is through remediation. He suggested a national database for
\ninformation sharing.<\/p>\n
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\u00a92009 by Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing
\nPersons (NVRC), 3951 Pender Drive, Suite 130, Fairfax, VA 22030;
\nwww.nvrc.org. 703-352-9055 V, 703-352-9056 TTY, 703-352-9058 Fax. Items in
\nthis newsletter are provided for information purposes only; NVRC does not
\nendorse products or services. You do not need permission to share this
\ninformation, but please be sure to credit NVRC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First Meeting of Technical Working Group on Captioning and Video Description Part One By Cheryl Heppner 5\/19\/09 Yesterday I attended the first meeting of the new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Technical Working Group which is to conduct an assessment of…<\/p>\n