Closed Captions: Contraction-Challenged

[DToTheJ]

I've noticed in the closed captions of some programs like "American Idol" and "Pardon the Interruption", whenever a contraction word is spoken, i.e. "it's" or "we'll", it is written on the screen in full form, i.e. "it is" or "we will". Can they not afford the apostrophes? You'd think they'd want to save screen space by leaving them in!

Anyhow, just a weird occurence that I was wondering if anyone else noticed.

 

[OhReally?]

Are you serious? Were you THIS bored?? :

 

[w9wi]

I've noticed in the closed captions of some programs like "American Idol" and "Pardon the Interruption", whenever a contraction word is spoken, i.e. "it's" or "we'll", it is written on the screen in full form, i.e. "it is" or "we will". Can they not afford the apostrophes? You'd think they'd want to save screen space by leaving them in!

The captioning standard includes an apostrophe in the standard character set, so it's definitely technically possible to use them.

My guess is the captioner who worked on these shows didn't have the contraction in their "dictionary". Were these live shows?

Live captioners use a stenograph ("court reporting") machine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype

It's only got 22 keys - captioners write in phonetic shorthand. Their work is translated by a computer, which looks up what they wrote and converts it to text.

P H PB

equals

"machine"

So if "it's" or "we'll" isn't in the captioner's translation dictionary, they have no way of typing those contractions. (this is why when there's an error in captioning, the "wrong" word is likely to be phonetically related to the "right" one - and why when an unexpected "weird" word comes along, it's more likely to be misspelled, sometimes very badly!)

If the program were taped, it could be corrected after the fact. The captioner would save their work to a file, then open it in a word-processor and make the corrections. The corrected file would then be given back to the production company which would scroll the captions out of the file back into the encoder and onto the final tape for air.

Of course, if it's a live program no such editing is possible.

 

[Mainedude2007]

My guess is the captioner who worked on these shows didn't have the contraction in their "dictionary". Were these live shows?

{edit}

If the program were taped, it could be corrected after the fact. The captioner would save their work to a file, then open it in a word-processor and make the corrections. The corrected file would then be given back to the production company which would scroll the captions out of the file back into the encoder and onto the final tape for air.

Of course, if it's a live program no such editing is possible.

from watching both shows regularly, PTI is taped if it's a slow sports day....my guess is yesterday it was live. As for AI...I would guess it's live, or about as live as you can get (taped a couple hours previous like Leno, Letterman, etc.)

 

[DToTheJ]

PTI is usually taped on the same day. AI is live this week, though I've noticed these same contractional "errors" while watching editions of "Idol" that were pre-recorded.

Closed captions fascinate me, especially the inaccuracies. Who can forget the time a news outlet reported a noted politician was being treated for "an enlarged prostitute"?

Not "bored", just an inquiring mind with a keen eye...

w9wi, thanks much for the explanation.

 

[Darth_vader]

(Just doing my civil duty here--there's an alternate discussion of CC happening right now and someone linked to this one through it. ;o)

Bear in mind that they don't always use stenotype machines. Some companies also have regular computer systems, with QWERTY keyboards, tied into the encoding chain as well. This method, ergo, is used instead of using the stenotype.

I doubt anyone would want to even consider transcribing a live show through a QWERTY keyboard, but it is sometimes used for transcribing pre-taped shows.