Thursday, October 14, 2010

Dateline: 2012

Today a very reliable source pointed Caption Action 2 to a timeline for the implementation of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, developed by a law firm and posted on the Internet. This timeline is a downloadable PDF file. According to this timeline, we can expect Internet closed captioning regulations to be published in Spring 2012.

So what does this mean for us? Until regulations are published, companies don't have to caption online. Between now and Spring 2012, all we can do is ask, plead, push, demand. All the while reminding them that it is going to be the law soon, so they may as well start now.

The timeline also indicates that at about the same time, regulations will also be published for caption decoding capability in devices. However, it looks like we have to wait until 2014 for CC buttons to be mandatory for remote controls.

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Friday, October 1, 2010

Vampire Mob Begins Captioning!

Today Vampire Mob (http://www.vampiremob.com) notified us that they were starting to closed caption! The first captioned episode from the first season is up, with more to come.

Caption Action 2 first contacted the producer of Vampire Mob on September 5. At that time, Vampire Mob was using Vimeo for their web series. On September 22, Vampire Mob's producer wrote back that he was the only one on the staff, and that the show was produced on a microbudget. However, a hearing fan would be assisting with closed captioning for their new YouTube channel!


(One of the few G-Rated Screen Shots Available!)
(He's a hitman and a vampire and he just found out his mother in law is moving in for eternity)

Just one week later, on October 1, Vampire Mob wrote again to announce that they had started captioning on YouTube! How did they do it so quickly? Simple! The aforementioned hearing fan listened to the video and compared the spoken dialogue to what was on a text script, then the producer "dropped all the lines into the timecode." The results are excellent; Caption Action 2 watched the video and did not see any errors unlike with unedited automatic captions.

This tiny producer with a shoestring budget has accomplished something that is apparently too difficult for wealthier producers. (Yes, that is sarcasm!) Let's reward Vampire Mob's producer by spreading the word about this entertainment web series being captioned! You can also send your thank-yous to info@vampiremob.com.

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