Category: Closed Captioning


I subscribe to the “Now Norma Knits” blog.  Norma is not only “one L short of normal” (Love it! Makes me want to change my name to “Norma” just so I can say that about myself), she also knits (pretty obvious from the title of her blog), is a self-professed organic gardner and locavore (thank you, Merriam-Webster), is interested in travel, and is a CART provider by vocation.

On Monday, August 29th, Norma wrote in her blog about the flooding in Vermont and included an embedded video of Weather Channel’s, Jim Cantore, saying “Jim Cantore rather sums up the feelings here (in Vermont).”

I pressed the arrow to play, and low and behold was the red cc (closed caption) button to turn captions on!!  I clicked the button, chose “Transcribe Audio”, and sat back to listen to, or rather read, Jim’s summation of the feelings in Vermont.

Below is the closed captions for this particular video, each line representing each screen with text, as it progressed from beginning to end.

the…

mrs…

sizzler…

basis…

discusses his oral roberts and i think that’s that’s long into the sunset i… think find alonso…

origination and resistance i have about his own reason i suppose listener…

essentially…

houses there and for the delivery error packages as you…

I had to several years was an important issue are an absolute barbara once…

you’re done you know…

equities is are needed…

parasitic…

he’s almost online and we have up which is that i have been across…

dozens of times and i’d like to use your own there’s the hostile and heavily…

emerged today…

sinuses also grief…

fans disastrously wednesday…

r_t_c…

flown off in the university of utah either of those although antes up there…

you just anxious…

sonal caldwell and say yes it is intended for andre rieu…

the peripherals and hear professional heart…

as up…

at issue in the nazi…

people here…

uh… well said…

rather act…

obviously someone died after a long period…

new jersey for everyone…

absolutely miserable anything has been going on to other states you’re still…

interested in foster’s death for us to bear on uses your data to marketplace…

book initial pennsylvania all across…

camera crews…

role of dvd just preferred…

or even if they could be meeting to order flowers for katy…

this is not so just saying…

excuse few seconds partially historical read a lot…

working on them…

healers and talk about me…

they’re all intact…

on the issue…

literary resented are his chances for me…

as also…

five also bosses…

says a lot sooner…

finally report…

no sign of progress…

excessive gas…

people…

is rooted continues so back to you…

Wow, so glad this video was captioned!  I never would have known what Jim Cantore was saying had it not been!  NOT!!

Summer is here and some of us are spending some hard earned money to take a vacation.  Some of those hard earned travellers are also hearing impaired and are consumers of the airline and cruise industry.

36 million Americans are hearing impaired and/or deaf, yet we are still struggling to obtain captioning on television, the internet, movie theatres, broadway shows and many other places.  Within the next few weeks, I’ll be flying several planes and cruising Alaska.  However, I can bet my airline ticket that the shows and movies I will be entertained by, will not be captioned.

So, what’s a customer to do? I am a full ticket paying customer who just wants to enjoy the flight and cruise like everyone else.  I’m not deaf but watching a show is more enjoyable if I can understand what’s being said and the only way I can get the speech is through captions.  I feel as though I spend half my life advocating and the other half is spent learning about social media. I can’t help but say to myself, 36 million Americans are hearing impaired, why aren’t we all out there advocating for universal captioning?

Then again, could you imagine if we all showed up at the White House lawn to make a statement? Time to speak up.  This country has allowed the silence to take over.  The more silent we are, the less power we have to make change.  Help advocate for captioning.  How? If you have a favorite show on t.v. thats not captioned, write the producers of the show.  If your favorite show is captioned, write a letter thanking them.  Join the battle by joining CCAC http://www.ccacaptioning.org/ and get informed.

Educating yourself as a consumer is the most important thing.  We deserve it.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 45 other followers