Help Get The Annoying Orange to Caption!

Today Mashable/Visible Measures came out with their new monthly list of top web series. For the seventh straight month, The Annoying Orange was #1. This is the web series that Caption Action 2 has tried to get to closed caption, but they have not responded at all. Getting the top web series to closed caption is critically important because if we can not get the top web series to caption, it makes it that much harder to convince less popular web series to closed caption. As they say, leadership has to start at the top.

Photo from Guest Appearance on Other Web Series

So tonight, Caption Action 2 launched a new Facebook group: Dane Boedigheimer Should Caption The Annoying Orange! (http://tinyurl.com/39a8obw) Our hope is that enough people, both hearing and deaf, will join and/or send emails to the producer to help make an impact on the producer of The Annoying Orange. This new Facebook group is considered a temporary group; we will take it down when the producer of The Annoying Orange commits to closed captioning with quality closed captions.

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Catheters, Not Accurate Captions

Even the Federal government is getting into web series now. But they can't be bothered to spend a few dollars for accurate closed captions. An example of this can be seen in the new (actually two months old) Federal web series $100 Note Podcast on the YouTube US Currency channel.

Caption Action 2 learned about the existence of this web series from a review on the TubeFilter blog. We checked out the first episode of this six-episode web series and found there are captions - but they are the YouTube automatic captions with no editing.

The little gem displayed here is an example of why the Federal government, when it budgets for a web series, should invest at least a few dollars in editing the automatic captions generated by YouTube. What is the caption trying to say? That the three agencies have to stay ahead of catheters (catheter: that thing that is placed inside a private part as a substitute for natural urination) because they are afraid consumers may pee on the $100 dollar bill?

Don't bother trying to watch the other episodes in this series. They too have only the YouTube automatic captions.

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Guest Blog: Creating Captions for Streamed Netflix Videos

Carolina Maria wrote the following guest blog for Caption Action 2, about creating subtitles for Netflix streamed videos.

Watch Streaming Movies in Netflix with Subtitles/Captions!

Netflix is a rental service of videos that provides its subscribers with two options:

1. Pick movies or any other video you wish to watch and they will mail the movies to your residence.

2. Instant watch; Streaming movies or any other video that you can watch on their website right away, without download.*

3. Netflix Ready Service: You use a device they provide you with to hook up with your TV and watch the videos there.*

*Not all videos have this ability, however the numbers are increasing.


For Instant Watch, they do not have captioning on their videos yet and when they do start implementing, it is not guaranteed that they will start to enable subtitles for every movie.

Recently, a .DFXP converter was developed (JoshErickson.com). It lets us convert the most common file extension for subtitling, .SRT, to .DFXP, which is good news because Microsoft's Silverlight, the program Netflix uses for their streaming videos, only recognizes that extension to enable subtitles.

However, it's not that simple. It just happens that Netflix has different timeline for their streaming videos (for example, added introduction for Netflix at beginning). In that case, the subtitles and the Netflix's video are not synchronized. You might end up reading an line that is only spoken 5 seconds later.

Since I am deaf, I was frustrated so my friend and I decided to convert the .SRT files to .DFXP and correct the timing of the subtitles to match Netflix's streaming videos. We thought, if we are going to do that... Why not share the files, readily available, for other Netflix's subscribers too?

You can download the .DFXP files of subtitles for Netflix videos on the Website www.carolinamaria.com/nfsubs and follow the newest uploads on Twitter, www.twitter.com/nfsubs. You can check the instructions here, which is surprisingly simple and short.

Please note that, unfortunately, the .DFXP does not work on the Netflix Ready Service. It only works when you watch the movie on your computer.

Enjoy the movies!

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Caption Action 2 Newsletter: September 2010

This is the Caption Action 2 newsletter for September 2010.

FINAL ACTIONS IN CONGRESS

This month should bring a final vote by the House on the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. The House is expected to pass S 3304, which passed the Senate in August.

As you know, S 3304 leaves out a very important and fast-growing area of entertainment: original television-like programming for the web. Anyone can produce a web series, but not all web series programs get large enough viewership to merit being pressured to closed caption.

Read more:

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/posts/534705?m=

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