It's Easier Now for Federal Agencies to Provide Captioning

July 2011

Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) today announced that its services are now available to federal government agencies purchasing under the General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule 70. AST's CaptionSync(tm) captioning and transcription service has long served federal, state and local government agencies that purchase outside of Schedule 70. As a registered GSA Schedule 70 contractor, AST is pleased to serve those government customers choosing to purchase under the GSA schedule to help simplify the procurement process for its CaptionSync services. Now agencies can comply with purchase requirements, and meet federal mandates for accessibility by captioning all digital video content.

AST has experienced a growing demand for its captioning services from government customers who must comply with multiple standards for media accessibility, including ADA and Section 508 and the recent mandate for broadcasters, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.

Agencies producing and archiving digital video get a dual advantage with AST - the ability to quickly and efficiently add time-coded, synchronized captions to videos as well as the advantage of having searchable video content that is easy to archive and retrieve.

A recent project for AST has been captioning and transcription for the Library of Congress to make its digital Webcasts accessible. "The Library releases hundreds of hours of new video content online each year. Adding transcripts and captioning not only meets the 508 regulatory requirements for accessibility, it makes the Webcasts more accessible for everyone who sees them," said Glenn Ricci, multimedia coordinator for the Information Technology Services Multimedia Group at the Library of Congress.

Complete and accurate closed captions are requirements for thousands of video publishers, who must satisfy state and federal mandatesfor content accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. Producers also incorporate captions to make video searchable, and toimprove viewer comprehension. Captioned text reinforces learning and allows text search for easy back-reference and review, an important training benefit for companies serving multilingual customers. Caption files also provide a ready source for foreign language translation.

"AST is committed to simplifying the procurement process for government customers by offering many different paths to our service. We have a proven track record for delivering compliant and cost-effective services to our customers in the public sector, and now offer access to our solution through this government-wide contract vehicle," said Kevin Erler, president of Automatic Sync Technologies. "Our GSA schedule status helps remove barriers so our public sector customers can use our CaptionSync service to make video universally accessible and searchable, by providing high-quality, complete and accurate closed captioning at a low price point."

About CaptionSync(tm)

CaptionSync is an innovative, proprietary software service powered by Automatic Sync Technologies, providing high-quality automated captioning with unrivaled speed at a fraction of the cost of conventional captioning. The simple user interface accepts electronic submission of program media and returns standard-format caption files for web-media such as Flash, QuickTime and Windows Media, for platforms such as Mediasite, Brightcove, Echo360, Panopto and YouTube, or for DVD authoring and broadcast. CaptionSync simultaneously generates caption output for multiple types of media from a single submission. CaptionSync provides the Gold Standard in accuracy because it does not rely on speech recognition software due to its inherent errors - AST stands apart from other providers of automation platforms for this reason. Read AST case studies about education, corporate and government customers to learn about high-speed captioning of video assets, completed in days, not months.

About Automatic Sync Technologies

Formed in 1998, AST has pioneered the automated captioning technology to deliver the most cost-efficient, high-quality, automatic captioning service available today. AST helps government agencies and educational institutions comply with mandated regulations to make advanced communication services accessible to the hard of hearing and deaf. For more information, email info@automaticsync.com, call +1 (877) 278-7962, or visit us online at http://www.automaticsync.com.