Tuesday, June 28, 2011

blip.tv's Player Now Has Closed Captioning!

In a previous post when we slammed blip.tv, we said that their player didn't have CC. blip.tv contacted Caption Action 2 and told us that the reason they had relaunched with no captions is because they had some technical issues that could not be resolved in time for the relaunch. They were forced to revert back to an older player. blip.tv promised to update their video player within a month. Today, blip.tv kept its promise and launched the new, updated video player with closed captioning support!



To see the video above, go to http://blip.tv/red-vs-blue/red-vs-blue-season-9-episode-2-5296839. The captions are similar in appearance to subtitles.

According to blip.tv, producers have to upload a special file (.srt or Timed Text XML) as part of the upload process if they want to include closed captions, and if they do, when you click on cc the captions go live. Only a small percentage of shows do this now, but some of the biggest shows, including Red vs. Blue, do.

Why is this such a big deal? blip.tv is one of the biggest hosts of original web series programming. When they relaunched last month, they got a lot of media attention because they were the first web series host to try to make it easier for people to find the best web series. Their relaunch included a continually refreshed redesign that showcases selected web series hand-picked by blip.tv editors.

blip.tv is also popular with web series producers because of the flexibility of its distribution network. In addition to being on blip.tv, web series are also distributed to multiple partner sites, including YouTube, AOL Video, Facebook, and iTunes.

If blip.tv can do it, why not Koldcast.tv? Crackle.com? MyDamnChannel.com? Atom.com? Babelgum.com? Vimeo?

Join Caption Action 2

Join Caption Action 2 on Facebook!
Posted by at

5 comments:

  1. J.J.June 28, 2011 at 8:43 PM

    Nice work! Appreciate all you do for the deaf community!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Susan MillerJune 28, 2011 at 8:59 PM

    So happy to hear that "Anyone But Me" will be able to add this feature on our blip.tv player. As of now we have CC on Youtube - Season 1 and 3. We have someone working on delivering S2.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SebastianJuly 3, 2011 at 1:02 AM

    Should Red Vs. Blue go on the captioned web series list?

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 5, 2011 at 11:26 AM

    Thks but the cc is sooo tiny on blip.. it needs improving..

    ReplyDelete
  5. Robert GJuly 10, 2011 at 8:40 PM

    Hello, Sebastian! We added it and a couple others! Interesting show, this Red vs Blue.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)