Closed Captioning

[bosco]

Ling can read and write English better than she speaks it so I turned on the TV Closed Captioning to help her better follow what she was hearing. Holy crap! It is work outsourced too???? I thought some of the guys here were poor spellers! But you guys are all English Majors compared to what I'm seeing on my TV screen every day.

 

I would think that with advancements in voice recognition software, closed captioning should be a piece of cake today but apparently, someone listens to, and transcribes everything manually because there is no way a computer can spell that bad--wrong words such as here/hear, sure. But far too often I see stuff like "Hloogjwk". So far, Ling hasn't asked what "Hloogjwk" means.......

[yuehan123]

I am amazed at some of the misspellings on the closed captioning of major news and weather networks which scroll continuously. Channels such as....well, never mind let's don't name names, no free advertising.

[SheLikesME?]

I never notised.

[dnoblett]

I can remember working at a Radio Shack store many years ago, we had a girl that work there who had a def friend, she would complain all the time about things like sports on the tv, the captions were always way behind the action.

[tonado]

My wife also likes to turn on closed captioning when watching TV.

[Rakkasan]

Ling can read and write English better than she speaks it so I turned on the TV Closed Captioning to help her better follow what she was hearing. Holy crap! It is work outsourced too???? I thought some of the guys here were poor spellers! But you guys are all English Majors compared to what I'm seeing on my TV screen every day.

 

I would think that with advancements in voice recognition software, closed captioning should be a piece of cake today but apparently, someone listens to, and transcribes everything manually because there is no way a computer can spell that bad--wrong words such as here/hear, sure. But far too often I see stuff like "Hloogjwk". So far, Ling hasn't asked what "Hloogjwk" means.......

I figured the problem was the voice recognition software, surely no one hired by a national broadcaster could spell that poorly and keep their job.

 

I have yet to figure out how to activate the closed captioning with my cable operator. I would like it for myself because I do not like having the TV turned up loud. I think I am getting old I even use subtitles when I am watching movies for the parts when people are whispering or when there is loud background noise so I will know what is being said.

[jim_julian]

But far too often I see stuff like "Hloogjwk". So far, Ling hasn't asked what "Hloogjwk" means.......

 

Hloogjwk is a small town near Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales. In the early 1950's it had it's ten minutes of fame hosting the International Slate Festival.

 

I thought you were up on these things, Curt ...

[bosco]

But far too often I see stuff like "Hloogjwk". So far, Ling hasn't asked what "Hloogjwk" means.......

 

Hloogjwk is a small town near Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales. In the early 1950's it had it's ten minutes of fame hosting the International Slate Festival.

 

I thought you were up on these things, Curt ...

 

 

Wo bu zher dao! (can I say that with a Sgt. Schulz accent?)

 

 

I watched a baseball game last night.....the CC was FAR worse than normal. And everytime one announcer used a specific phrase, no trace of it appeared in the CC.

 

No, it certainly isn't being done by voice recognition. I think the reason it lags so far during sports broadcasts is because of the live action. Other programming, being pre-recorded, can be CC'd ahead of time. During the baseball game I got the feeling the CC was being done by a non-native English speaker. After the game I saw the CC was done by a company in Vancouver, B.C. At this point I'd bet the CC operator was Asian or Indian--certainly by someone unfamiliar with baseball.

Edited May 20, 2007 by Ling-Curt (see edit history)

[Randy W]

If you want to REALLY foul things up, though, get a computer to do it!

 

The voice recognition devices in use today have a limited vocabulary (say 50 to 100 words), and you must speak clearly, with limited background noise - NOT good for TV. Being able to distinguish between words like "left" and "right" (without "training") was a major break-through towards making the car voice-recognition systems of today possible.

 

The human mind can recognize many contexts that the software we have today couldn't hope to.

 

I haven't seen any Microsoft Word-type dictation software in use, but I could imagine that a lot of "training" of the software is necessary - not possible for TV.

Edited May 20, 2007 by Randy W (see edit history)

[bosco]

If you want to REALLY foul things up, though, get a computer to do it!

 

The voice recognition devices in use today have a limited vocabulary (say 50 to 100 words), and you must speak clearly, with limited background noise - NOT good for TV. Being able to distinguish between words like "left" and "right" (without "training") was a major break-through towards making the car voice-recognition systems of today possible.

 

The human mind can recognize many contexts that the software we have today couldn't hope to.

 

I haven't seen any Microsoft Word-type dictation software in use, but I could imagine that a lot of "training" of the software is necessary - not possible for TV.

 

 

I've had clients using voice recognition software to write with Word and other apps for years. I think it may be better than you think.

 

If what we see on CC were computer translated, specific phrases would not be ignored like I saw last night.

 

Duh........I should have thought to actually look for info to begin with....

 

I was right. It is done by typists--not voice recognition software: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mclosedcaption.html

 

And as I said in my last post. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the work is being outsourced. The most commonly skipped content I've noticed are colloquiallisms and slang. This reinforces my suspicion that the typists are not native-English speakers.

Edited May 20, 2007 by Ling-Curt (see edit history)

[Randy W]

If you want to REALLY foul things up, though, get a computer to do it!

 

The voice recognition devices in use today have a limited vocabulary (say 50 to 100 words), and you must speak clearly, with limited background noise - NOT good for TV. Being able to distinguish between words like "left" and "right" (without "training") was a major break-through towards making the car voice-recognition systems of today possible.

 

The human mind can recognize many contexts that the software we have today couldn't hope to.

 

I haven't seen any Microsoft Word-type dictation software in use, but I could imagine that a lot of "training" of the software is necessary - not possible for TV.

 

 

I've had clients using voice recognition software to write with Word and other apps for years. I think it may be better than you think.

 

If what we see on CC were computer translated, specific phrases would not be ignored like I saw last night.

 

Duh........I should have thought to actually look for info to begin with....

 

I was right. It is done by typists--not voice recognition software: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mclosedcaption.html

 

And as I said in my last post. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the work is being outsourced. The most commonly skipped content I've noticed are colloquiallisms and slang. This reinforces my suspicion that the typists are not native-English speakers.

 

There's a world of difference between personal voice recognition and TV -

Someday voice-recognition software may take over during live broadcasts, but currently such software is notoriously unreliable, particularly in situations involving multiple speakers with a wide range of voices, accents and inflections.

[Randy W]

The state-of-the-art for humans is much better, but to date, no one has been able to figure out the lyrics for "louie, Louie"

[ktmracer]

My son is deaf and CC is on all the time. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad and then real bad. Right now the news on tv is good today, it all depends on what services the news station is using. most of the time I have to sign the news to him. Also, when watching the local news, when the weather man comes, the CC stops.

[TootTaLu]

Ling can read and write English better than she speaks it so I turned on the TV Closed Captioning to help her better follow what she was hearing. Holy crap! It is work outsourced too???? I thought some of the guys here were poor spellers! But you guys are all English Majors compared to what I'm seeing on my TV screen every day.

 

I would think that with advancements in voice recognition software, closed captioning should be a piece of cake today but apparently, someone listens to, and transcribes everything manually because there is no way a computer can spell that bad--wrong words such as here/hear, sure. But far too often I see stuff like "Hloogjwk". So far, Ling hasn't asked what "Hloogjwk" means.......

Closed Caption for the deaf probably had simplified grammar so the deaf can read it faster,but misspellings are very common on DVD captioning,not to mention some of the Chinese subtitles include

"added opinions",a kind of propaganda, along with the translations.

[izus]

i purchased a bunch of dvd's in beijing.

the CC is hilarious.

 

you can be watching seinfeld and it says something completely different that has nothing to do with anything, then it jumps back on to what they are saying.

 

the dvd CC purchased in the states however is very good.

Chunyan always uses it and actually i have gotten used to it as well and sometimes find myself going to the bottom of the screen when certain things are not clearly said.