Concerns About Captioning and the Digital TV Transition

By Cheryl Heppner

Editor: You probably know by know that digital TV (DTV) is coming. And you may have also heard that folks are experiencing lots of problems with DTV captioning. Here's Cheryl Heppner with a report on the transition.

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February 2008

The first coupons for the US Digital TV Converter Box Coupon Program are expected to be in the mail any day now. A number of consumer advocates like me have been pushing for months to have real consumers test the various DTV converter boxes that you will be able to buy with these coupons, and NVRC offered in August to help with work on that effort. Unfortunately the NTIA, which oversees the DTV converter box program, chose not to do this. They felt that there was not enough time before the converter boxes needed to be available for sale.

All the DTV converter boxes that are approved for coupon purchase are required to show closed captions. That feature has been tested by NTIA. What we advocates have protested, however, is that this is not enough.

What Consumer Testing is Needed

Among the things we don't know:
- Are there caption buttons on both the TV and the remote control (if provided), and are they clearly marked and easy to find?
- How easy is it to find captions on the DTV converter box menu and get them set up?
- Will the DTV converter box automatically save your caption settings once you have set them up, or will they have to be set up each time you turn the DTV converter box on?
- What is the quality of the captions you see -- are they crisp and easy to read?
- Does the user's guide give instructions about finding and locating captions that are clear and easy to follow?
- Does the company have a website and 800 number for troubleshooting problems that may occur?
- Do the captions display as they are supposed to at all times?

Dana Mulvany, Taking the Lead

Without actual consumer testing, we only know that captioning feature is included, but not how well it works. Some individuals have taken matters into their own hands, most notably Dana Mulvany. She personally bought a DTV converter box without waiting for arrival of her coupon, and has tested it for several days. Among the concerns she's noted:

- The captioning wouldn't work if the default font was changed. (This is the font that the converter box is automatically set up to use unless you decide to change it to another font).

- When she selected to use one font in a larger size, long sentences suddenly pushed all the captions to the left. Then, when space ran out for the captions, they suddenly jumped back to the far left.

- Some fonts were "so thin that they kind of flicker," and sometimes the background behind certain captions disappeared.

- When testing the converter box at the home of a friend, she found that entire sentence fragments occasionally disappeared.

Dana has taken pictures of different caption fonts that were available on her converter box. You can compare how they looked with her HDTV and an old analog TV. See them at: http://picasaweb.google.com/dana.mulvany/DTVCaptionsComparisonPictures

Dana cautions that these pictures should not be used to evaluate the quality of the picture from the TV, due to the quality of her camera and how she shot the photos. The photos are intended only to give some idea of what the fonts look like. None of these show black text on a colored background, which she has found works quite well.

We all owe a debt to Dana for her pioneering work in this area, and to Bob MacPherson who has been helpful in digging up information about features of various DTV-related products.

Some Additional Cautions

If you plan to buy a DTV converter box, there are additional concerns.

1. You will only have 90 days to use your DTV converter box coupon once you receive it. Unless something happens very quickly to get all these converter boxes evaluated, people who apply for their coupons early will be guinea pigs who find out whether the converter boxes work well or not. Without information on how well the converter boxes hold up under real-life conditions, it's impossible for these early purchasers to be informed buyers.

2. If you use a $40 coupon to buy a converter box at one store and don't like the converter box once you get it home, there may not be other more satisfactory choices at the same store that you can exchange it for. The regulations don't require the store to make exchanges if you're not going to buy another converter box from them, although the store may still honor the exchange.

3. There will also be DTV converter boxes available for sale that have not been approved for the coupon program. Many may have more bells and whistles, but they have not had to undergo any testing by the NTIA.

Barriers to Fixing the Problem

While we'd like to see extensive product testing and readily-available information to help consumers in their purchase of DTV converter boxes, there are some big hurdles. The sheer number of converter boxes that are eligible for purchase through the coupon program is now approaching 40. Ideally they should all be tested on many televisions and under many different conditions. This could certainly be done, but despite the entreaties of NVRC and other consumer advocates, no one has stepped forward to fund such an effort.

NVRC wouldn't be pushing so hard for this to happen if we didn't already hear daily about problems with digital TV captioning, some of them unresolved for months. We'd like to get all those problems solved before the digital transition comes in February 2009; it's a nightmare to imagine what will happen if we don't. We're working on it with our fellow advocates.

DTV Transition Workshop

Don't forget the FCC's Digital Television Workshop on February 28, 2008 from 8:30 to 12:45, which we covered in our 2/12/08 News. It's at the FCC headquarters, 445 12th Street SW, Washington, DC 20554 in the Commission Meeting Room. Sign language interpreters, CART and listening system will be provided. You can see converter boxes on display. You can learn more about what is being done to reach out to people with disabilities, and what issues remain. If you can't attend in person, you can watch a live, open-captioned webcast of the hearing at the FCC's website: http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio/#feb28 on a first-come, first-served basis. The webcast will remain available after the Workshop in the FCC's website archives. During the Workshop, the public can e-mail questions for the panelists to dtvworkshop@fcc.gov.

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