Closed Captions and Digital Television

Digital Broadcasting recently published a feature article on the captioning standards for digital television (DTV). I've provided a short summary below; if you'd like to read the article in its entirety, point your browser to: http://www.digitalbroadcasting.com/content/news/article.asp
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The good news is that the FCC mandated that all digital television sets must include closed captioning capability and all DTV programming must be captioned. The bad news is that the appropriate technical standards have yet to be worked out.

An industry consortium that includes WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), industry organizations, and manufacturers is currently trying to resolve existing uncertainties and establish appropriate standards. Their goal is to ensure that all required equipment is compatible and that the customer with hearing loss can use DTV captions as intended, including the ability to select the captioning font style and size.

In current (analog) television transmissions, the captioning information is inserted in the Vertical Blanking Interval. Video description, which provides vocal description of the television program for people with vision loss, is carried in the Secondary Audio Program (SAP) channel. Since neither of these features exists in DTV, an entirely new solution was required for the digital equipment.

The industry has been slow to address the DTV captioning issue, partly because of the lack of fixed requirements. But as the July 2002 deadline rapidly approaches, the DTV organizations are getting serious about resolving this issue.

For more information about WGBH's DTV Access Project and NCAM, visit the NCAM website at www.wgbh.org/ncam.

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Zenith Launches HDTVs With Digital Closed Captioning Capability

July 2002

Editor: High Definition Television (HDTV) is coming. It seems that the progress is slower than people were predicting, but it will happen. One of the early concerns was that these TVs wouldn't support captioning, but the FCC stepped in to ensure that would happen. Here are portions of a press release announcing the production of the first HDTVs with closed captioning capability.

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The first high-definition television (HDTV) sets incorporating new digital closed caption capability are rolling off the production lines, consistent with today's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deadline.

A driving force behind both digital television (DTV) and closed captions, Zenith Electronics Corporation today began production of digital HDTVs capable of providing digital closed captioning services to the deaf and hearing-impaired. Unlike analog closed captions, digital caption capability (based on the EIA-708 standard) provides tremendous flexibility and greater user control over caption display, including font style, text size and color, and backgrounds.

In a related development, Zenith announced today that it will join with WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) and its DTV Access Project to demonstrate digital closed captioning in the Nation's Capitol beginning this week. At back-to-back conferences -- the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) 2002 conference and Gallaudet University's Deaf Way II -- NCAM will demonstrate the first fully implemented EIA-708B caption decoder using Zenith's new integrated HDTVs.

WGBH's digital closed-captioned programs will be shown to NAD attendees July 6 at Washington's Marriott Wardman Park Hotel and to the Deaf Way II conference at the D.C. Convention Center on July 9. Closed-captioned programs created by WGBH will be displayed at both events on Zenith's new direct-view digital HDTVs soon to be available at retail: the 34-inch C34W23 widescreen integrated HDTV, the 36-inch C36V23 integrated HDTV, and the 32-inch C32V23, which is the industry's first integrated HDTV priced under $1,500.

In addition to originating nearly one-third of PBS's prime-time programming, Boston's WGBH is widely credited with pioneering closed captioning and video descriptions for TV broadcasting. Zenith has worked closely with WGBH in the implementation of digital closed captioning in its HDTVs, just as it did in 1991 with its analog TV products capable of displaying closed captioning.

Two years ago the FCC declared that consumer electronics manufacturers would be required to include compliant closed-captioning decoder circuitry in digital TV devices beginning July 1, 2002. Consumer equipment covered under the FCC Report and Order includes DTV sets with integrated widescreen displays measuring at least 7.8 inches vertically, DTV sets with conventional displays measuring at least 13 inches vertically, and stand-alone DTV tuners.

The CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), part of the Media Access Group at Boston public broadcaster WGBH, is leading an unprecedented cross-country effort to enable digital television stations to deliver closed captioning and video description services to individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or visually impaired.

Through its DTV Access Project (www.dtvaccess.org), NCAM works with broadcasters, professional and consumer electronics manufacturers and industry standards bodies to support implementation of these vital access services. FCC mandates require all stations to have DTV signals on the air by 2003, while a variety of requirements to transmit and receive closed captioning and video description are now in effect.

DTV Access project funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Television Future Fund, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research/U.S. Department of Education and the NCAM Business Partners Program.