internet captioning for people with hearing loss
Captioning on the Internet?
Believe it or not, it will soon be required if people
with hearing loss are to have full access to the World Wide Web. That's
because transmitting sound over the internet is becoming increasingly
easy. Read all about the plans to add sound to the Internet and why you
should be concerned about it in Sonify the Web.
WGBH in Boston has developed software that allows folks
to caption videos in a variety of formats. And it's available for the
very favorable price of FREE. Here's MAGpie.
November 1999 - Sign World TV is
an innovative organization that
"broadcasts" over the Internet, and all their programming is
both captioned and interpreted.
April 2000 - The FCC provided internet captioning for
their April 28th public forum. How did they
do it and how successful was it?
July 2000 - Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act becomes effective next month. It requires Federal
websites to be accessible. Will it cause the
shutdown of many Federal agency websites?
July 2000 - People with hearing loss find instant
messaging to be a great resource, because you can use it despite your
hearing loss. Or at least, you could. Read about Voice-Enabled
Instant Messaging from Microsoft.
October 2000 - One of the recent developments on the
internet is the advent of captioned videos. An organization called
AbleTV is now providing captioned videos of
news events.
January 2001 - If you're interested in the upcoming inauguration ball, and
are concerned that lack of captioning will make it inaccessible to you,
you might want to watch it on the web. TVWorldwide.com recently
announced
that they will provide captioned streaming video coverage of
that event.
July 2001 - MovieFlix and the Captioned Media Program
are working to add captions to the streaming internet movies provided by
MovieFlix. So if you have a reasonably fast connection, you can now view
captioned streaming movies over the internet.
November 2001 - e-Media and Wordwave cooperate to provide captions
on live webcasts.
December 2001 - NCAM's Access to Rich Media Resource Site
May 2002 - Flash Web Technology Becomes Accessible
October 2002 - Court Rules Web Need Not be
Accessible - This article is about a court decision that websites
need not be accessible to the blind, but the same reasoning applies to
captioning Internet videos.
December 2002 - The Captioned Media Program announces
Captioned
Educational Streaming Video on the Internet. Now you can visit their
website and view captioned educational videos RIGHT NOW!
January 2003 - With sound becoming increasingly important on the
Internet, it's good to see the W3C establish a group
to address standards for streaming text.
September 2003 - So what's up with Multimedia
on the Web? Is it going to be accessible to people with hearing
loss? Judy Brewer, the Director of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
at the WWW Consortium (W3C) gives us her thoughts.
October 2003 - Here's a report on the Captioning
on the Internet workshop at the 2003 TDI Convention. The presenter
was Linda Idoni, the director of the West Coast office of the Media
Access Group (MAG) at WGBH.
October 2003 - AOL has just announced that they will
be captioning some of their streaming media. This is wonderful news
for people with hearing loss. Hopefully other content providers
will follow suit.
October 2003 - OK, so we're seeing some progress on ensuring that
multimedia on the internet is captioned. But what about eBooks?
Here's
the latest on eBook accessibility!
August 2004 - You have probably seen streaming video from the
Internet using RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. But have you seen
CAPTIONED streaming video? If not, here's a great demo
of the technology, and a couple of people you can contact for more
information.
January 2005 - WGBH announces CaptionKeeper, a
tool to convert television captions to a format for use with Internet
streaming video.
November 2005 - The disability community has a long history of
fighting for access in the fields of telecommunications, television,
etc; and it has done a remarkable job of ensuring that access is
required. Now, however, many of these services are moving to the
Internet, where there none of the existing legislation applies. Here's
a press release from the NAD that discusses this critical issue!
January 2006 - If you think that captioning on
the Internet is not an important issue, you should read this post from
Jamie Berke, who hosts the About:Deafness/HOH site.
February 2006 - Would it surprise you to learn that online versions
of broadcast television programs do NOT include captions? Here's
the story!
March 2006 - Net
video leaves the deaf behind
March 2006 - Here's
Cheryl Heppner's great article on captioning Internet video.
July 2006 - Guidelines for Creating Accessible
Digital Materials Published by WGBH/NCAM
July 2006 - AOL Announces Closed Captions for
Online Video
September 2006 - Martin Says FCC Shouldn't Regulate
Online Video
September 2006 - Google Video Supports Captions
October 2006 - Deaf
Web Users Fear Being Left Behind As TV Shows Stream Onto the Internet
March 2007 - WGBH
Creates Tool For Captioning Flash Media
March 2007 - Automatic Sync Technologies Makes
Captioning Easy for Adobe Flash
May 2007 - Obama
Videos Get Closed Captioning
June 2007 - Digital Revolution
Ignores Captioning Requirements
September 2007 - Captioned Internet News!
October 2007 - View "Heroes" on the Internet with
Captions
October 2007 - Organizations Promote Online Media
Captions
December 2007 - Tom Harkin's web videos to be
captioned!
December 2007 - CNET TV Adds Closed Captioning!
December 2007 - Proposed Legislation
Promotes Accessibility
December 2007 - Subtitled Music Videos
January 2008 - Taudiobook Offers Free Captioned
Videos Online
January 2008 - Overstream adds captions to your
videos
January 2008 - Site Maintains List of Captioned
Movies Available from iTunes Store
February 2008 - Project ReadOn Provides Captioned
Videos Online
March 2008 - CNET Unveils CNET TV 2.0 With Closed
Captioning
March 2008 - XOrbit Announces Direct-to-MPEG
Closed Captioning Solution
March 2008 - Captioned Web Videos from BBC
May 2008 - Google Video Offers Search for Captioned
Videos
May 2008 - Democrat wants to require
disability-friendly Internet phones, video
May 2008 - DigitalChalk
Partners with IBM to Automate Closed Captioning for Video Training
June 2008 - Bill Would Require Captioning on Internet
Videos
June 2008 - Goldberg Testimony on Markey Bill
June 2008 - 21st Century Communications and
Video Accessibility Act Introduced
June 2008 - Markey
Bill Explained in Simple Language
August 2008 -
Some Minnesota Political Ads MUST
Be Captioned!
August 2008 - YouTube Has Speech-to-Text
Functionality...and it Works
August 2008 -
Deafness and the User Experience
September 2008 - Captioned YouTube?
September 2008 - American Experience "The
Presidents" Downloads have Closed Captioning and Video Description
April 2009 -
CaptionTube: Sophisticated Caption Editing for
YouTube Videos
May 2009 -
COAT Contacts Hulu Internet TV Distributor
about More Accessibility
June 2009 -
COAT Requests Captions on Nexflix "Watch Instantly"
Offerings
June 2009 -
Why Netflix Doesn't Offer Subtitles or Closed
Captions
July 2009 - COAT Applauds Representative
Markey's Accessibility Bill
November 2009 - Google to Caption YouTube Videos
November 2009 - Google and YouTube: Leading the Way
for Internet Captioning
December 2009 - Hulu Labs Cooks Up Captions Search
January 2010 - YouTube Adds Automatic "Captioning"
January 2010 - 22frames catalogs captioned videos and
more!
January 2010 - Captioned Internet Videos -- An
Emerging Issue and Initial Success
February 2010 - An engineer's quest to caption the Web
February 2010 - Connecting Marlee and Mickey
March 2010 - YouTube Makes Captioning Available to All
March 2010 - Captioning for Online TV
April 2010 - Netflix Subtitles Some Online Movies
April 2010 - Technology Poised to Ease Internet Video
Captioning
July 2010 - Create Your Own YouTube Captions Quickly
and Easily
August 2010 - Should Closed-Captioning Of Web Video Be
Mandated By Government?
September 2010 - Captions on the Web
October 2010 -
Court Reporters Ready to Help with
Closed Captioning for New Disability Act
November 2010 -
YouTube and Online Captions
December 2010 -
'The Annoying Orange' Needs More Captions
February 2011 -
Find
NetFlix InstantWatch movies with subtitles
March 2011 -
Netflix Working to Provide Captions for Online
Content
March 2011 - Zediva Introduces Online Movie
Rental Service for New Releases
April 2011 -
Hollywood Studios Sue Start-Up Zediva
May 2011 - SMPTE Makes Closed-Captioning
Standard Freely Available
May 2011 -
Netflix Adds Subtitles to iPad, iPhone App
June 2011 -
Nonprofit sues CNN.com for not captioning
online videos
June 2011 - NAD Files Disability Civil
Rights Lawsuit Against Netflix
July 2011 -
Google Works to Improve YouTube Auto-Captions for
the Deaf
July 2011 - It's Easier Now for Federal Agencies
to Provide Captioning
July 2011 -
Advocates Press for Captioning of Online Videos
July 2011 - Khan Academy goes global with crowdsourced subtitles
July 2011 - Internet Closed Captioning Report Released
September 2011 - FCC Proposes Closed Captioning Rules
for Online Video
October 2011 - Court Reporters Push for Higher
Standards in Internet Captioning
November 2011 - COAT Groups Beat Back Attempts to Weaken
TV Internet Captioning
January 2012 - FCC Releases Television IP Captioning
Rules
More on this and
related topics
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ALERT!
ALERT!
A
man named Thomas Dolby Robertson will be presenting what is billed as
the "the next online revolution: sound on the Net", at CNET
Builder.com Live!, which will be held December 7-11, 1999. Until now the
largest barrier for adding sound to a Web site has been the overwhelming
file size and download time. Now, companies including Yahoo!, Intel, and
MTV have successfully brought sound to the web.
What this means to
us, of course, is that the
internet might become the next major communications medium to exclude
people who have hearing loss. These companies have been working to
deliver sound over the internet as easily as they currently deliver
text, and they have succeeded. To date the inability to hear has mostly
deprived people of cheesy music that really adds nothing to the content
of the sites. But with the development of reduced bandwidth sound
formats, it may now be possible to make sound as important on the
internet as it is on television.
There are
currently NO CAPTIONING REQUIREMENTS on the internet, so this
development could mean the exclusion of people with hearing loss from
much of the internet (especially the World Wide Web).
This is a
development we will be following closely. Also, we'd love to get YOUR
ideas about what we can do to prevent the World Wide Web from becoming
inaccessible. Send your ideas to hearinglossweb@hearinglossweb.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 2000
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act becomes effective on August
8th. It requires that websites of federal agencies be fully accessible
for people with disabilities, including hearing loss. For people with
hearing loss, that means that all videos must be captioned, streaming
audio must have text alternatives, and any acoustic information must
also be presented in alternative formats.
There has been some online speculation that many federal agencies
will simply shut down their websites on August 7th to avoid having to
comply. My guess is that they will just ignore the access requirements.
So mark August 8th on your calendar. It might be an interesting day
to poke around the federal agency websites to see what you find!
For more information on Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, visit
the Section 508 Page
of our Resources Directory.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 2001
Editor: Are you familiar with the National Center for Accessible
Media (NCAM)? They are a subsidiary of WGBH in Boston, and they are
working to ensure that the hot new internet technologies remain
accessible to people with disabilities, including hearing loss. They
have a website that demonstrates how to do exactly that. So if you or
someone you know works on the web, be sure to check their site. Contact
information is provided on the WGBH
Page of our Resource Directory.
Here are
portions of a recent press release.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Access to Rich Media Resource Site is an online repository of
information about creating accessible video, graphics, animation and the
like. The information is intended for developers and for users. The Access to Rich Media
site and related activities are funded by the National Institute on
Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education.
Examples of rich media include:
- A streaming video newscast.
- An animated GIF in a banner advertisement.
- A map with audio descriptions of historic locations which are
activated by mouse rollover.
- A stock ticker on a news web site.
- An intranet-based training video played in the QuickTime player.
- An animated Flash presentation embedded in a web page.
- An image slideshow playing on a Palm handheld.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2002
One of the concerns that we all need to be aware of is the
possibility that people with disabilities will be denied access to
communications technology because its developers do not make the
technology accessible. This has been a particularly troublesome concern
with regard to some of the new Internet technology, because the Internet
is becoming such an important part of mainstream American life. The
Internet has historically been text-based, which is fine for people for
hearing loss, and even for people with vision loss if designers take a
few simple steps to ensure screen reader compatibility. But recent
technologies like Flash and Shockwave have been introduced with no
thought to accessibility. Their growing popularity threatened to exclude
people with disabilities from a significant portion of Internet content.
Fortunately, the newly released Flash MX provides both captioning
capabilities and screen reader compatibility.
Flash is an Internet technology that allows developers to create
interactive, highly visual applications while maintaining a small file
size. This is of benefit to users because they are able to access these
applications without enduring a lengthy download.
Jason Smith, a technical director at the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, created a Flash captioning tool, which was
subsequently purchased by Macromedia, the company that developed the
Flash technology. The Macromedia folks will be releasing this tool as a
free downloadable Flash extension, thus enabling all Flash developers to
create captioned applications. Here's a link to an example of captioning done with
Smith's tool.
One of the strong incentives for accessibility for all Internet
technology is the requirement of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
This requirement, which went into effect last June, requires that all
Federal government websites be accessible to people with disabilities.
As of that date, Federal websites were not able to use Flash or other
new technologies that did not provide appropriate access.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2003
As sound becomes more and more pervasive on the Internet, this
wonderful resource is becoming increasingly unavailable to people with
hearing loss. Organizations like WGBH in Boston are working to provide
user-friendly tools to enable developers to provide Internet access to
people with disabilities. The Federal government has chimed in with
Section 508, which requires all Federal websites to be fully accessible.
Unfortunately, less than 20% of Federal sites comply with this
regulation. (I just read the number and wasn't clever enough to save it.
If anyone has it, please let me know.)
Now the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is getting involved. This is
the group that establishes standards for the Internet; while their
involvement doesn't guarantee that a standard will be proposed,
accepted, or used, it sure increases the likelihood that these good
things will happen. The W3C has established the Timed Text Working Group
(TTWG) and instructed them to establish XML-based standards to define a
streaming text protocol.
A related specification called the Synchronized Multimedia
Integration Language (SMIL) is in the final recommendation stages of the
W3C process. It describes in general terms how to coordinate various
components of multimedia presentations, but does not provide specific
guidelines for implementing text. The result is the creation of
proprietary and incompatible specifications that pretty much guarantee
that the technology will not become broadly adopted. (Remember the
browser wars of a few years ago?)
For additional information, please point your browser to http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981491.html?tag=fd_top
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
August 2004
Editor: You have probably seen streaming video from the Internet
using RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. But have you seen CAPTIONED
streaming video? If not, here's a great demo of the technology, and a
couple of people you can contact for more information. If you are
involved in any aspect of video production, I hope all your products are
captioned!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Visual Voice Captions and Vision Office are pleased to present a
demonstration of accessible streaming media on WorldEnable. The
captioned video presentation uses the United Nation's webcast of a press
conference of the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on a comprehensive
and integral convention to promote and protect the rights of persons
with disabilities.
http://www.worldenable.net/rights/adhoc3meet.htm
On the left-hand side, click on:
Accessible Media Demonstration: 24 May 2004 UN Press conference with
Ambassador Gallegos. (requires RealPlayer)
If you want to learn more about accessible streaming video and how it
benefits your organizations, contact:
Leo Valdes, C.C.P., M.B.A., Managing Director
Vision Office Support Services, Ltd. [Empower the User]
Tel. 1.604.983.0415
Fax. 1.604.983.0748
Shelley Arthur, Principal
www.VisualVoiceCaptions.com
Toll Free: 1-866-219-4414
Tel: 604-533-6558
Fax: 604-533-6631
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2005
Editor: Those who are interested in captioning streaming video on the
Internet are familiar with MAGpie, WGBH's software that allows anyone to
insert captions into videos of various format.
WGBH recently announced a new tool called CaptionKeeper, which
converts television captions into a format suitable for streaming video.
Here's the press release.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Boston, MA. WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM)
announces the availability of software which enables closed captions
created for broadcast and video to migrate to the Web.
CaptionKeeper (TM) software automatically converts line-21 captions
created for television or video into Web-streaming formats. The
software, now available for purchase, uses existing closed-caption data
to create caption text suitable for live and/or archived multimedia
presentations via RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and QuickTime Player
formats.
The development of CaptionKeeper follows WGBH's release of its
award-winning Media Access Generator, or MAGpie software. MAGpie is a
free tool that enables do-it-yourself captioning and audio description
(for users who are blind or have low vision) of digitized media, and is
used by people around the world to make Web-based multimedia accessible.
CaptionKeeper joins MAGpie as an easy-to-use tool for creating a more
accessible Web.
For additional information on CaptionKeeper, including technical
specifications and cost, please visit (www.captionkeeper.org) or contact
the NCAM via e-mail at captionkeeper@wgbh.org.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February
2006
An
estimated 31 million Americans are hard of hearing, so it seems
intuitive that Apple would provide captions on shows like
"Desperate Housewives" and "The Office" that it has
started selling online. Yet, in a mystery worthy of "Lost,"
there aren't subtitles on any of the iTunes video products. "We're
just shut out," says Maria Herr of Chicago, who is deaf. "I
paid $2 for an episode of 'Commander in Chief' and I have no idea what
Geena Davis is saying." Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
March
2006
Like
millions of people in America last September, Sonny Wasilowski was
riveted by the real-life drama of JetBlue Flight 292. The plane's
landing gear was stuck, and as pilots prepared for an emergency landing
at Los Angeles International Airport, television stations trained their
cameras on the potentially doomed flight. But as the plane circled LAX
to burn off fuel, Wasiloski had no idea what was happening. All he saw
was the same picture of an airplane floating against the darkening night
sky. Like many watchers, Wasiloski had tuned into the unfolding drama at
work and was watching news video coverage on his computer, over the
Internet. But the video he watched online was essentially useless to
him. Wasilowski is deaf. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September 2006
FCC
Chairman Kevin Martin says he does not think the FCC should be
regulating Google Video, YouTube or other online video services. When
asked during his renomination hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee
Tuesday about his philosophy of Internet regulation, he said that he did
not think the Internet should be taxed, or that it should be subject to
payments into the Universal Service Fund for rural telecommunications,
which he said would discourage broadband rollouts by raising the price.
As to online video, he said that it is "not necessary to regulate
[Internet video service] at this time."
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Google Video supports captions in self
broadcasting, with Subviewer (.sub) and Subrip (.srt) formats. Adding
video captions is easy using the form in the "video status" section (no
more transcript, but captions).
To see some examples, please point your browser to:
http://video.google.com/videocaptioned
And to find out how to caption YOUR videos, see:
http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26577
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October
2006
The
Internet has been a boon to deaf computer users, giving them easy access
to a wide variety of information and breaking down communication
barriers. But many of those users feel left behind by one of the
Internet's fastest-growing segments: online video. Though television
networks and movie studios are rapidly expanding into Internet
distribution, few online videos offer the closed captioning that
companies are required by law to offer to TV viewers. The major networks
provide full-length episodes of some of their most popular shows on the
Web, including hits like "Lost" and "Survivor," but
none of them include captions. Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes store sells
downloads of more than 200 TV shows, but doesn't offer versions with
captions, and the company's popular iPod player doesn't support them.
The absence of online captions has emerged as a hot topic in the deaf
community. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Web
video is helping all sorts of people get connected to the political
process - but some have still been left out. For the deaf and
hard-of-hearing, YouTube hasn't really done a whole lot of good - until
now. Nine of Senator Barack Obama's web videos have now been outfitted
with closed-captioning, thanks to Project readOn, which created a
special player to display captions alongside a Web video (make sure you
turn off your pop-up blocker when you try this out). Several of his
videos are directly linked to on Project readOn's homepage, and you can
search for his name to find all of his captioned videos. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September 2007
This is very cool! You may have heard that AOL
would provide closed captioning on some of its online news stories. Well,
that feature is operational now! Point your browser to http://tinyurl.com/24uvbg
and notice that some of the stories have the "CC" symbol by them. If you
activate those stories, a separate window will come up with the video in
it, and it will have a "CC" symbol. Just click on that symbol to get
closed captions for that story! Very cool!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Editor: Thanks to Cheryl Heppner and NVRC for this info on an online
captioned episode of "Heroes" from NBC. It's not perfect, as Cheryl points
out. But it's a good start!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NBC has given us a glimpse of the future for captions on the Internet.
You can view an episode of the hit series "Heroes" at http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/video/episodes.shtml
1. Click on "Full Episodes" near the top of the screen
2. Click on "Select Episode" at the lower left of the screen
3. Click on "Episode 201: Four Months Later"
4. Click on the first chapter
You will need to watch a commercial before the show begins
5. As the show begins, you will see a new tab for Extra Features - either
select from it (if it's visible) or click the blue VIEW tab
6. Click to select closed captioning
In a second or two, you will see text at the right of the screen. The box
with text on a gray background shows what is being spoken onscreen or
gives information about sounds. After the text appears in the gray box, it
moves to the black background.
The text is small, and it can take practice to scan the captions and
the screen, but it's a great start. You get the whole experience,
including the commercials.
You can easily go back to see something you missed, or move ahead to
the end of the show by dragging the bar along the bottom of the screen.
The captions will follow with it. I've heard that sometimes the download
speed makes the captions out of sync, but I didn't have that problem..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 2007
CNET TV, an online site that focuses on technology
and consumer products, just announced that it is adding captioning to its
videos. Many consumers had written and emailed asking for this
accommodation, and the folks at CNET finally made it happen! Starting
today, CNET videos will have a "CC" button in the lower right corner of
their video interface. Simply click the button to bring up captioning.
Executive edirot Molly Wood explained that the captioning may not always
be available immediately when a video is uploaded, but will be available
within a few days, max. You can view it
here. Be sure to
click on the "CC" button in the lower right corner.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 2007
Subtitleman, a Canadian whose hobby is to collect
and subtitle videos for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, has
completed 65 music videos with captions that are available on YouTube.
His videos
include selections by such musicians as:
Martina
McBride
Simon &
Garfunkel
Nancy
Sinatra
Billy
Joel
Peter &
Gordon
Gerry &
the Pacemakers
Patsy
Cline
Hillsong
John
Mayer
Dixie
Chicks
Alan
Jackson
Weird Al
Jankovic
You can find links to all of his selections, and
sign up to subscribe at: http://uk.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=subtitleman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2007
Taudiobook is a company with software that
automatically syncs a transcript to a video. As a promotion and a public
service they've been captioning various videos, including virtually all of
the presidential debates You might want to check out some of his other
captioned videos, too!
Point your browser here!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2008
Have you ever produced a video without adding
captions simply because you didn't want to bother using your video
editor's clunky, built-in captioning tools? Better yet, want to add
captions to someone else's video? Check out Overstream, a service that
lets you add text captions to videos from a handful of hosting sites
including the big two: YouTube and Google Video. Diving right in to
captioning a video is simple. Once you've given Overstream the URL, it
sends you to the Flash-based editor, which at first glance may look
complicated, but is about as simple as it gets. If you're used to the
timeline controls of any old video player you'll feel right at home--just
pick the spot of video where you want to add a caption and start typing
away. Overstream will automatically add each caption as a 3-second chunk.
If you need to make it shorter or longer, there are toggle controls you
can dial up or down, and buttons to send it right next to the neighboring
caption. Additionally, you can see exactly where the caption will end in a
color-coded bar that sits below the video's timeline, and tweaking it down
to the exact half second or so requires no technical knowhow whatsoever;
just drag the bar to the part of the video you want. When finished with
any additions you can kick the video back out to Overstream, where it'll
be hosted from its original service provider (via embed) while overlaying
the captions you've created below.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2008
We're slowly but surely starting to see more
captioned content on the Internet, and hopefully that trend will continue!
I recently got an email from Luck Kanthatham, informing me that the Apple
TV Source website is maintaining a list of captioned movies available from
the iTunes Store. See
http://appletvsource.com/content/view/546/64/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 2008
Project readOn is a team of people with the
singular goal of making online media content available to all, whether you
are hard of hearing, simply cannot or do not want sound on, or if the
content is in a language other than your native tongue. We have built a
caption player that allows for universal access to online media. Our
mission is to distribute this service to as many people globally who need
it. Through advertising dollars, grants and the management of meta-data we
hope to continue to provide this service indefinitely. The owners of
Project readOn have a long history in online services and closed
captioning in the traditional broadcast world, and they bring this wealth
of knowledge and expertise to Project readOn. We have offices in Los
Angeles and Austin Texas and we work with people across the US and the
world in both the private and public sectors to realize our dream of
universal Access for All for all online video content.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2008
Google Video has a new advanced search feature
which allows users to quickly locate all of the closed captioned (CC)
videos on the web or on any particular site. Point your browser to the
Google video advanced search capability (URL below), enter desired search
words and the domain you want to search, and check "Search only closed
captioned videos" checkbox. This is very cool!
http://video.google.com/videoadvancedsearch
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2008
At the moment, most TVs and telephones must be
outfitted with special features for people with hearing, vision, and
speech impairments under U.S. law. Now an influential Democratic
congressman wants to expand those requirements to their Internet
counterparts. The bill being drafted by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) would
require, at least in some cases, dramatic changes in the way Internet
phone- and video-related products are designed, while making it more
difficult than under existing law for companies to claim exemptions from
those requirements. [. . .] In some ways, the effort would simply build
upon steps already taken by policymakers in recent years. Last summer, for
instance, the Federal Communications Commission decided that voice-over
Internet protocol providers whose services connect to the public-switched
telephone network, such as Vonage, would be required to make their
services compatible with hearing aids and telecommunications relay
services, just as traditional phone operators do.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2008
Many people also use the Internet to view movie
clips, television shows, newscasts and sporting events. However, many are
not able to take full advantage of these media because of their
disabilites. Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, of Malden, is sponsoring
a bill that would mandate major producers of Internet videos to implement
captioning and video description soundtracks on their videos. Television
networks would be obligated to deliver captioning and video description
tracks when streaming their shows online, along with video description
tracks as well as closed captioning for traditional over-the-air
broadcasts. While there are some technological issues to overcome, such as
formatting captions and video descriptions to be compatible with Windows,
Macintosh and Linux computers, along with the different media players
available for each computer, the industry says these concerns can be
resolved and is working on them.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 2009
Last August YouTube enabled users to upload closed
caption files for video captions, but today they're trying to make it even
easier for you to reach those viewers who are either hearing impaired or
unable to understand your audio. YouTube's new caption feature,
CaptionTube, now allows for adding captions via a sophisticated video
caption editor, so users can add their text transcriptions side by side
with the video in question. Acknowledging the limitations prior to
CaptionTube, the YouTube blog admits, "We recognize, however, that the
process of adding closed captions to your video - uploading a text file -
leaves a bit to be desired, even though we support a wide range of formats
from various captioning service and software."
Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2009
COAT recently wrote a letter to Hulu asking for
more accessibility and usability of their website and of the content on
the Hulu website (TV, movies and video clips). COAT thanked Hulu for
already having some material captioned and for making captioned material
searchable through a "special features" function. COAT also asked Hulu to
take steps to make all of the video material on the website captioned and
video described. For a copy of COAT's letter, send Email [Ed:
info@coataccess.info].
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2009
On June 11, COAT sent a letter to Netflix asking
them to make its "Watch Instantly" movies and other videos and its website
accessible to and usable by people with hearing and people with vision
disabilities. Consumers are irate about lack of accessibility including
some Netflix shareholders. COAT asked for a designated disability Point of
Contact, a meeting with Netflix executives to discuss concerns, and a
written committment from the company on what steps it is taking to
incorporate accessibility and usability in all of its services
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2009
Netflix's chief product officer, Neil Hunt, wrote
an interesting blog post today about why his company doesn't offer
subtitles or closed captions on its streaming content. Evidently, adding
subtitles and closed captions is harder than it looks. English subtitles
don't need to be added to most English movies (they are "burned in" to the
stream for foreign language movies), so the company needs to figure out a
way to let individuals turn the words on or off.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 2009
In the first major step toward making millions of
videos on YouTube accessible to deaf and hearing-impaired people, Google
unveiled new technologies on Thursday that will automatically bring text
captions to many videos on the site. While the technology can only insert
captions on English language speech, Google is giving users the choice to
use its automatic translation system to read the captions in 51 languages.
That could broaden the appeal of YouTube videos to millions of other
people who do not speak English but could use the captioning technology to
read subtitles in their native language. The speech recognition technology
that Google uses to turn speech into text is not new; Google currently
uses it to transcribe voice mail messages for users of its Google Voice
service. But Ken Harrenstien, a deaf engineer who helped develop the
automatic captioning system, said the technology had never been applied on
such a large scale.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 2009
Hulu Labs, the premium video content site's
platform that offers users experimental new features, has just rolled out
a nifty new feature called Captions Search. Captions Search lets you
search for keywords within the closed captions for videos of TV shows on
the site. Closed Captioning is the transcript and text from a television
or video screen that's often used as a way for the hearing-impaired to
watch television. The new feature also lets you see a quick preview of a
search results, by hovering your mouse over the thumbnail with the segment
of the video that includes the search term included.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
January 2010
The web offers a world of quality videos for our
enjoyment and enlightenment. However, for a large population of Internet
users* who are unable to hear, understand, or enable the audio content of
videos, finding ones to watch can be a pain**. Captioned and subtitled
videos are an answer; however, they are generally scattered and/or mixed
with all other videos across the Internet. Up until now, there was no
central place to easily and reliably search for and discover such videos
across multiple video hosts. 22frames was built, in part, to provide such
a place. In turn, an additionally important goal is to drive significant
traffic to caption/subtitle friendly video hosts and creators. By
continually indexing videos from these multiple hosts, this site offers an
increasingly comprehensive catalog covering many different topics.
Indexing is mostly automated using APIs and specialized web crawlers. User
submissions of videos and channels also play an important role.
Here's the site!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 2010
The Internet used to be a place where Ken
Harrenstien could do anything. The Google engineer, who has been deaf
since childhood, loved the Web because he could e-mail and chat without
the aid of a sign language translator. But as the Web evolved and got
faster, online video started to flood in. And all of a sudden, this place
that once allowed for limitless communication started to feel walled off
to Harrenstien. "It was only when they started adding videos that the Net
was not my means of access, but it became a barrier," he said in a recent
interview, speaking through signing interpreter. "And that was very
frustrating." The reason for Harrenstien's trouble is simple: Almost no
video on the Internet comes paired with text captioning for the deaf.
Full story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Blair Levin
February 2010
Nobody who was at the FCC's broadband field
hearing at Gallaudet University (http://www.broadband.gov/fieldevents/)in
November will forget the passion of Marlee Matlin. Her dedicated efforts
led to captioning laws being passed nearly a generation ago. But now, she
told us, her work was being "erased." Closed captions were being taken
out of broadcast content being shown on the Internet. Among her many
examples: her own performance on "Dancing with the Stars!" Her distress
was palpable. We posted a video clip (http://blog.broadband.gov/?entryId=15370)
of Marlee's statement on our blog, and her passion was seen over the
blogosphere. Someone forwarded the clip to Disney. And Disney got to
work. As a result, Disney has announced that ABC.com is expanding its
captioning efforts. Instead of just captioning scripted dramas and
comedies, it has committed to captioning all of its long form programs
that it puts on its online player at ABC.com, including reality and live
shows like "Dancing With The Stars." Way to go, Marlee. Way to go, Disney.
And way to go to the person in the blogosphere who thought to connect the
two.
Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
March 2010
Google's YouTube on Thursday announced that it has
moved its automatic speech-recognition and closed-captioning technology
out of beta and have now made it available to the YouTube community at
large. Most, if not all, YouTube videos now include a "CC" button that, if
pressed, will automatically generate the closed-captioning technology. The
technology processes the audio feed, using the speech-recognition
technology used in the core voice search feature that has also built into
the Android voice search feature, the GOOG-411 phone search, and other
products.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
March 2010
The entertainment world is moving to the next
generation of closed captioning technology with online TV, as a new
Spreety.com video demonstrates. For example, ABC.com has the ability to
customize white on black vs. black on white text. FOX.com does a good job
of moving captions to the top or the bottom of the screen, based on the
most appropriate place for the text to be displayed. PBS and PBS Kids have
most of their shows online with closed caption support. . . . Hulu further
innovates with a caption search feature that hot links to the matching
video clip. With any YouTube video, Speech to Text technology can be used
to generate same language captions. Then, through translation software,
the captions can be rendered in many languages.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 2010
This is Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer at
Netflix. As I promised last year, I'm pleased to report that today we have
enabled closed captioning for some TV episodes and movies that you can
watch instantly on your PC or Mac. Although it's a limited library of
content with subtitles available - about 100 titles - we now have released
the technology and we will be working to fill in the library over time
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 2010
A few months ago, Vint Cerf, Vice President and
Chief Internet Evangelist for Google and hard-of-hearing "Father of the
Internet," announced that select partners of YouTube are beta testing
software enabling computer-generated captioning. The software uses
Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology to turn spoken (or recorded)
words into computer text, then creates the necessary captions. It's not
perfect, but it allows complete access within the current limitations of
voice recognition technology. With some improvements in ASR, YouTube users
could have the ability to click "Transcribe Audio" within the interface
and automatically generate captions from a video's soundtrack. Cerf worked
with Kenneth Hammerstein, a software engineer at Google who is deaf, on
the project.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 2010
I created a simple web application to significantly
speed up the human-based caption creation process for broadband users who
want to create YouTube-compatible caption files. Since YouTube now has the
capacity to translate captions into hundreds of foreign languages, this
should appeal to people who are interested in reaching non-English
speakers as well as the hearing-impaired. Right now it outputs captions in
the YouTube .SBV format. I'd be happy to add an interface to output in
other caption formats if requested.
Here's the
introductory beta demo version.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
August 2010
This month
Congress unanimously passed the Twenty-first Century Communications and
Video Accessibility Act (S. 3304) and the Twenty-first Century
Communications and Video Accessibility Act (H.R. 3101) As Josh explained
in his own post at 3PlayMedia, the two bills that have been passedwill
expand the requirement for web video captioning and accessibility
services. Specifically,
1. They
will require that any captioned television program be captioned when
delivered over the Internet, and;
2. They
also require all devices large enough for video to be equipped to support
captioning functionality.
Josh does
explain in his post that while H.R. 3101 and S. 3304 have more widespread
implications for television-related programming, they are still "a
significant step forward" in providing a mandate for closed-captioning in
online video with professional publishers and platforms.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September 2010
Videos posted on the Web reach a global audience.
But often a large portion of that audience is excluded from the full
experience because they can't hear the audio and the videos don't have
captions. That's starting to change for the 36 million Americans with
varying levels of hearing loss, according to estimates by the Hearing Loss
Association of America. Legislation requiring TV broadcasters to provide
captions for its online programming is headed for approval when Congress
returns from recess this month. "There are those within the industry who
recognize the inherent value [of providing captions online] and they've
found a cost-effective way of putting it out there," said Pat Prozzi,
president of the video captioning service VITAC, based in Canonsburg.
"[But] there are a group of program providers that see it less as a
benefit and more of a cost.
Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 2010
When YouTube launched its automatic
closed-captioning service a year ago, there were a few important words the
tool couldn't recognize – like "YouTube."
YouTube's manually uploaded captions on a video of
Google CEO Eric Schmidt.The problem highlighted some of the difficulties
faced in the push to make new technology more accessible to people with
disabilities. Accessibility tools like speech recognition are still
evolving. And so much information is now generated by users that it seems
impossible to make it all accessible to everyone.
In the past few weeks, Google has rolled out major
improvements in the technology behind automatic captions, reducing the
overall word error rate by 20%. The tool, which is accessed by clicking on
the little "cc" button on most YouTube videos and selecting "Transcribe
Audio," can be used by anyone. But it's not perfect.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 2010
When Julia Childs' The French Chef appeared on PBS
in 1972 with captions, it marked the first time TV had ever been
accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. Nearly 40 years later, when
viewers first tuned in to "The Annoying Orange," the chart-topping
Webisode series on YouTube (GOOG), none of the videos bore captions. Some
of the show's videos now have captions, due to the work of a volunteer.
The new law designed to make it easier for the 54 million Americans with
disabilities to access online programming simply isn't strong enough. The
Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010
amends Federal Communications Commission policy to require captions for
broadcast TV, cable, and satellite programs shown over the Internet if
they originally aired on TV with captions.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 2010
Editor:
Here’s a note from NVRC that provides a link to a list of subtitled
InstantWatch NetFlix movies.
Many
readers have been upset that Netflix is increasing the number of movies
and television shows available by video streaming through its InstantWatch
service, but these movies and shows are not captioned. Meantime, Netflix
has raised the cost of renting DVD and Blu-Ray disks, which individuals
who are deaf or hard of hearing had previously fought to have available
with captions or English subtitles. The National Association of the Deaf
has pushed Netflix to change its service practices so that all individuals
may enjoy the entertainment equally. Progress is being made, but it has
been difficult to search and find which videos are accessible.
Now
there’s a blog that lists all of the movies currently known to be
available by InstantWatch that have English SDH (“subtitles for the deaf
or hard of hearing”) as well as silent movies and popular foreign films
with open subtitles. Below you’ll find the instructions at the beginning
of the blog, before the well-organized list of movies available. Kudos to
the creator of this blog.
Here's the list!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
March 2011
The Web as a whole tends to favor those
individuals with their vision intact. There are a couple of areas of the
Web that have benefitted the visually impaired: Web radio and podcasting
services, for example, are generally free sources of lots of information,
and many of the most popular news sites do daily or weekly audio recaps of
their featured written content. Voice over IP communications, likewise has
brought the convenience of free instant messaging to those without sight.
But for the most part, the Web has been a silent place that we look at,
instead of listen to. Netflix on Friday, however, revealed that streaming
video is one of those areas on the Web where the hearing impaired also
face a big statistical disadvantage. Even though video, by definition is
something that we consume with our eyes, the audio is often just as
important, and without closed captioning, it can often be of no use. Neil
Hunt, Chief Product Officer at Netflix said only 30% of streaming content
on Netflix (roughly 3,500 TV episodes and movies) has support for
captioning and subtitles in the U.S, and they can only be viewed on PC,
Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3, GoogleTV, and Boxee Box. Hunt says more devices
will be added in the summer of 2011, and the goal is to equip 80% of
streaming content with subtitles by that time.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 2011
Six Hollywood studios on Monday sued
Internet-movie company Zediva, saying the start-up violates copyright law
with its system for showing new movies online for $1 or $2. The company
calls its service a DVD-rental operation. But rather than sending DVDs to
customers through the mail, as Netflix Inc. and similar services do,
Zediva's discs sit in banks of players at a Silicon Valley data center,
playing back movies on-demand each time a customer places an order.
Lawyers for the Motion Picture Association of America argued that the
transmission over the Internet of movies like "Black Swan" and "Hereafter"
constitutes a "public performance"-for which an operator like Zediva would
need a specific license, which it doesn't have.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2011
Netflix has expanded the availability of closed
captioning on its streaming service with the latest update of its iOS
application. With the update, the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch join a
growing list of consumer electronics devices that support streaming
subtitles through the service.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2011
A Berkeley-based nonprofit sued global media and
entertainment giant Time Warner on Wednesday in Alameda County Superior
Court, claiming CNN.com discriminates against the deaf or hard-of-hearing
by not providing any captioning of its online videos. Disability Rights
Advocates is representing the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness and
three individual plaintiffs in what they call a first-of-its-kind lawsuit.
The Oakland firm of Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian is also
representing the plaintiffs. "Time Warner's refusal to provide captioning
of its videos is astounding given how central the Internet is in today's
communication environment," DRA attorney Anna Levine said in a news
release. "The lack of captioned videos means that millions of people with
hearing loss will continue to be denied equal access to video news content
on CNN.com." The lawsuit alleges violations of California's Unruh Civil
Rights Act and Disabled Persons Act. A CNN spokeswoman said Wednesday that
because the company has not yet been served with the lawsuit, it won't
comment.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2011
Visitors to YouTube, which now boasts
theInternet's second-largest search engine, have uploaded hundreds of
millions of videos since its launch in early 2005. For most people YouTube
(Google bought the video-sharing site for $1.65 billion in late 2006) is a
valuable outlet for sharing personal videos, catching up on college
lectures, consulting "how-to" clips and absorbing pop-culture nuggets like
"Weird Al" Yankovic's parody of Lady Gaga. Until recently, however, the
tens of millions of deaf and hearing-impaired (in the U.S. alone) could
not take full advantage of YouTube because they were getting only half of
the experience. Google and YouTubeengineers are working to fix this by
improving software that can automatically add captions to all videos,
although this has been a difficult process.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 2100
McG, executive producer of the TV series "Chuck"
and "Supernatural" and director of the movies "Charlie's Angels" and
"Terminator Salvation," has a new action series out this summer. "Aim
High" has a handsome protagonist, Nick Green, who deals with all the
travails of adolescent life, exaggerated to make a good action flick. He
has a punk-rock love interest, a seductive teacher and a double life as a
CIA assassin. But the Warner Bros. show won't be available on prime-time
television when it begins August 1. It's only airing on Facebook and is
just one of the many original Web series being pushed by big-name and
amateur producers alike in the hope of tapping into the huge and growing
online video audience.The show, however, may lose viewers before it even
starts. Facebook video does not offer closed captioning, which means 36
million Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing won't be able to tune in
to the adventures of the teenage spy
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 2011
The Khan Academy is expanding its reach beyond the
English-language world, thanks to community-provided subtitles. Those
subtitles will add translations to more than two dozen languages on videos
of the popular education site. Khan's internationalization efforts are
aided by Universal Subtitles, a non-profit which tries to make web video
more accessible to both deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers as well as
international audiences through crowd-sourced captioning. Each and every
video on the Khan Academy's website now comes with a subtitle menu that
allows viewers to pick the language of their choosing.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 2011
The Video Programming Accessibility Advisory
Committee has released its report to the FCC on closed captioning of
IP-video programming (available (http://tinyurl.com/6fgt8o7), as required
by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act passed last
October. As we explained earlier here, the Accessibility Act requires
that, once a television program is published or exhibited on television
with closed captions, any subsequent distribution of that programming on
the Internet must include closed captions.
The Accessibility Act requires that the FCC revise
its closed captioning rules within 6 months of the Committee's report,
thus, new FCC closed captioning rules must be in place no later than
January 13, 2012. (The report is dated July 13, 2011, though it appears
to have been released July 11.) The report proposes the following
compliance schedule based on the date the FCC's revised rules are
published in the Federal Register:
* Within 6
months: programming that has been prerecorded and unedited for Internet
distribution;
* Within
12 months: live and near-live programming
* Within
18 months: programming that has been prerecorded and substantially edited
for Internet distribution.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September 2011
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has
issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeking comment on proposed
rules for the closed captioning of video programming delivered via
Internet protocol (i.e., "IP video"), under the 21st Century
Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). As discussed in our
advisory on the CVAA and our overview of the Report by the Video
Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee (VPAAC) making
recommendations for FCC implementation, the CVAA compels the adoption of
rules that require IP video programming to have closed captions if it
appeared on TV with captions after the new rules' effective date. This
proceeding will affect TV stations, cable systems, broadcast and cable
networks and virtually every other professional video program producer who
is now, or will be in the future, making their programming available on
the Internet. With a proceeding so wide-reaching, with a very short
comment period given the congressionally-mandated implementation schedule,
everyone involved in these businesses needs to know what the FCC is
proposing. Full
Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
November 2011
COAT
groups filed additional comments into the FCC's docket addressing
captioning of TV programming on the Internet. These comments advocated
that the FCC:
* should
reject calls to narrow the scope of video programming subject to the
CVAA's captioning requirements.
* should
reject industry attempts to avoid the VPAAC's proposed performance
objectives.
* should
reject industry efforts to shirk responsibility for captioning via IP
delivery.
* must
implement a robust complaint system to facilitate compliance with the
CVAA's captioning rules.
* should
not extend the VPAAC's proposed schedule for captioning compliance
* should
reject unwarranted attempts to narrow the scope of "apparatus[es]" subject
to section 203's requirements.
* should
limit industry requests to circumvent section 203's requirements via
waivers and determinations of nonachievability.
Full Story
