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How to Type Closed Captioning

Closed captioning is a television service that allows the deaf or hearing-impaired to "read" TV. Writing closed captions can be done for either live or taped programming, and both types involve special software programmed for captioning centers. The captions appear as moving subtitles, are placed in strategic locations on the screen for readability, and are broadcast using a V-chip or a set decoder box; the V-chip is now law in all TVs sold in the U.S. Closed captioning was mandated for most TV programming with the advent of the 1990 Americans For Disabilities Act. Twenty-four million Americans are deaf or hearing-impaired, and necessitate closed-captioning on their TVs.

Things You'll Need

  • A computer
  • Closed captioning software
  • Encoding software
  • A court stenography machine
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Instructions

    • 1

      Transcribe the taped program, and with the help of the software, match the words the actors are saying to the video time code. The software will also enable you to "place" the captions on the TV screen, near the actor or person who is speaking. The software will also enable you to time the appearance of the words--edit the phrases, and then make sure you do not run the caption titles too fast, as the hearing-impaired do not read captions as fast as people with good hearing; 120-150 words per minute is considered the industry standard.

    • 2

      Save your captions, and then run them through the encoding process, which will enable the captions to "stick" to the video via what is known as "line-21 encoding." This will enable the viewer with the V-chip to decode the captions, which are sent in the twenty-one lines of extra information that appear as the black vertical bars on your TV.

    • 3

      Transcribe the live program by employing a court stenography machine. This is known as "real-time captioning," and is more lucrative for a typist than "off-line captioning," for it can take years of training in court stenography school. Using the specialized software, the captions will appear to the left of the screen, with the name of the speaker included. The software will also translate the captions into proper English from phonetics, which is how court stenography is transcribed. Concentrate, and type the words being spoken quickly; in this case, the line-21 encoding is instantaneous, and the words you type will be broadcast with a time delay of only a few seconds. Try not to make too many errors, for there will be no time to fix them.

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