• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Any SAP and CC2 in Boston DMA?

S

Schuyler

Another thread ("NESN's 2nd audio channel broadcasting WEEI") got me thinking...which is always dangerous. As an OTA viewer, I would have thought I'd see more use of separate audio and secondary closed captioning after the digital transition, but I'm seeing almost NONE. In fact, a lot of programing seems not to have Closed Captioning in the primary language (English or Spanish, depending on station).

The only use of SAP I have found was on one of the ION station's QUBO subchannel. It broadcast the cartoon's Spanish translation. (I pick up Boston's 68 or Concord's 21 intermittently and never at the same time.)

Am I missing something here? Wouldn't it be good business for Univision et al to at least run English captions? And were there actually more of these services (not the subchannels, obviously) in good ol' analog?
 
When it was owned by Sony Telemundo had most shows captioned in English - on the screen in transmission and not in CC mode. AFAIK Univision has never had any English captioning or alternate audio.
 
WGBH (along with many other PBS stations throughout the US) uses their SAP channel for Descriptive Video Service (DVS). It's basically just like closed-captioning but it's for blind people. A voiceover will narrate what is happening in the picture: "Several children run through a city park and draw on pavement with colored chalk. Abby Cadabby, a pink girl fairy puppet flies through the air; Elmo, a red furry puppet rides a tricycle." But it is made so that it does not interfere with the actual dialogue of the show.
 
With new digital channels how does on access the SAP audio? Also, which Boston channels has SAP through Comcast?
 
If you have Comcast, choose the Setup menu, then go to "Audio Setup", and then it will ask you to select the language. It's usually the "Spanish" option that you will want to select for the SAP, because many premium movie channels use the SAP for Spanish audio.
 
Schuyler said:
Wouldn't it be good business for Univision et al to at least run English captions?
Click to expand...

Nope. The rights to air just the Spanish-language versions of things cost much less than do the rights for both languages.

- Trip
 
Technically speaking, there is no "SAP" anymore. On our (The TV engineer's) end, it's a language descriptor. On the consumer's end, it can be anything. Some TVs have it as "audio", some as "language". I have yet to see a digital TV actually call it "sap".

Even on the digital converter boxes, and such, there is no "SAP".

And yes, a second audio stream IS a second audio program (SAP), my point is, the term SAP is no longer SAP, it's the others.

Confused yet?
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom