SAME LANGUAGE SUBTITLES VITAL!

EVER enjoy a foreign film with great captioning until they start speaking in English for a short time?

Then subtitles stop – ugh! This happened to me the other night on Amazon prime videos. It also happens on Netflix. Double ugh.

What we need to advocate for is SAME LANGUAGE SUBTITLES, and we need same language subtitles on ALL VIDEOS of course.

For example, videos and live streams online now from so many GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS all over the world, including from the White House.

We need same language subtitles to enjoy all our British TV shows. Many times the accents are a little confusing. Read this about the dilemma: https://web.archive.org/web/20080321131957/http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/blink/2007/05/translated_from_the_british.php

Add your comments please. Join the CCAC. Let’s advocate. Let’s Talk Captioning! Equal communication access is the law, and the right thing to do. Go to http://CCACaptioning.org

COMMUNICATION IS LIFE.

CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM

How To: Create and Hard Code Subtitles

FROM ANDREA D, active CCAC provider member:

1. Free program called Video to Video burns in the subtitles during the conversion process.

2. My workflow, from unsubtitled video to final hardsubbed video, assuming I’m doing all the steps myself (and not outsourcing to get a .srt file) is:

1. Create/obtain a transcript
2. “Chunk” the transcript into individual subtitle screens, breaking lines at logical points
3. Upload the video to YouTube (set to “private” since I don’t actually want people watching it)
4. Upload the transcript to YouTube and let it run the autotiming
5. Download the autotimed subtitles in .srt format
6. Open the video and .srt file in Aegisub
7. Save the .srt file as an .ass file — this step is IMPORTANT because .ass supports a lot more formatting options than .srt
8. Go through the video with subtitles and correct any timing or transcription errors, and add any formatting (mostly adding italics or moving the subtitles around on the screen so they don’t cover up important on-screen information)
9. Convert the video to a subtitled video using Video to Video — you just load the video, tell it the output format, tell it what subtitle file to use, and it does the rest.

As far as the details of Aegisub, I learned most of what I do through trial and error. And http://docs.aegisub.org/manual/Editing_Subtitles#Supported_formats is a pretty good overview of some of the basics. I don’t use 99% of the features in Aegisub (it does things like karaoke timing and fancy animated subtitles for animé and translation), but for what I do… it works well. I use styles for position on screen, and to specify subtitle font and color options. I personally prefer yellow subtitles on a semi-transparent black box, like this:

Hope this is all helpful!

-Andrea Dietrich

==

Great question on this topic and related * came into the CCAC Members’ forum the other day and there is additional input in the forum. Are you a CCAC member yet? You are invited now. CCACaptioning.org/join/ and email if you have any questions.

*…interested in learning some of the diverse approaches, software, etc., that people use to rip captions from videos for analysis, revision, experimentation, research, critique, etc.

and also asked for input re two closed captioning products for post-production captions.

1. EEG’s FilePro Scribe https://eegent.com/products

2. Telestream’s MacCaption or CaptionMake

CCAC – PLACE 2 B 4 CAPTIONING ADVOCACY

ADVOCATE – EDUCATE – RAISE AWARENESS

REPEAT!

CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM

Welcome 2017 – A Captioning Year

Happy New Year to all reading! We welcome the new year, and we will welcome all of you who decide to help make 2017 a great year for captioning inclusion.

CCAC is now 7 years old. My oh my – time flies. Much accomplished, much more to do!

We invite you to read the CCAC webpages – soon. CCAC volunteers do so much. Offer so much for an all volunteer official non-profit. We live online. And you are needed now.

Teams will form soon for various good captioning advocacy projects. From revision of the CCAC website to guest blogposts here to social media and fundraising and the Grant Program and more….you are needed too.

EMAIL: CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM

 

 

CAPTIONING ADVOCACY NEEDS YOU

Guess we’ve been very busy -long time since new blogpost – doing, among other things, Captioning Advocacy!

CCAC has strength in numbers – you are needed too. JOIN today. Why not? Email anytime if you have a question about being a member.

CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM

CCACAPTIONING.ORG IS THE WEBSITE

CCAC MISSION – INCLUSION OF QUALITY CAPTIONING UNIVERSALLY

p.s. we welcome guest blogposts about captioning!

CHANGING THOSE CAPTIONING OPTIONS!

EVERY DAY in every way we aim to find – have – enjoy – equal communication access and for many of us – millions – it’s quality captioning we can use. This post is about Media captioning online.

Breaking news is important for all of us to have access to. Videos and live broadcasts online must have quality captioning. The law (e.g. in the USA for TV also online) is that CC is required. Yet many times it takes a strong persistence to figure out how to turn it on (yes really, it’s not always a visible “cc” on the bottom of the screen) and then to adjust it.

Options to adjust it vary – font size, text color, background color, and more. Here’s my effort today to be able to read and use the online news as comfortably as people without hearing differences:

I opened MSNBC. Good news is that videos are all captioned (as required by law) yet at first CC was totally unreadable due to white text on transparent background that was placed right on top of the banner text along bottom of screen. Impossible.

With 4 clicks – yes four – I changed it to the following:
1. click on CC
2. my CC already ON – click on color of text
3. click on color of background
4. click on apply

In the CCAC Members’ Forum the other day we were talking about similar issues for YouTube videos, especially now with the new system YT/Google seems to be using. Check out the options everyone!

JOIN us in the CCAC – your membership is invited! Go to
http://ccacaptioning.org/join/

Summer Solstice and Captioning Advocacy

The long days now in our part of the world seem ideal for expanding our CAPTIONING ADVOCACY activities. How about joining us – helping – in any small way or larger way that works for us both!

CCAC is all volunteers. We need new members and added energies all the time – as much as we welcome donations.

Some CCAC behind-the-scenes chores are listed below – and if you want to suggest a new way or a new idea about how to accomplish the CCAC Mission- please tell us!

Some of the current CCAC captioning advocacy projects are listed below also – and we’d love to have your participation. Email soon.

CCAC Mission – Inclusion of Quality Captioning Universally
Web – http://CCACaptioning.org
Email – CCACaptioning@gmail.com
=
Captioning Advocacy Projects all welcome new helpers! Get in touch with questions and ideas for:

CCAC GRANTS FOR LIVE EVENT CAPTIONING – CCAC gives money to educate, raise awareness and make captioning inclusion happen, Apply now! http://ccacaptioning.org/ccac-sponsorship-for-cart-a-new-captioning-advocacy-program/ – help us “market” this offer of Free Captioning.

CAPTIONS CAPTURE THE VOTES Campaign to encourage all government leaders on all levels to make their messages and live events accessible with quality captioning. http://ccacaptioning.org/captions-capture-the-votes/ Volunteers needed.

MEDIA – VIDEO – CAPTIONING ADVOCACY includes so much. Recently, CCAC talked with YOUTUBE/GOOGLE directly. #WHccNOW campaign on social media for White House to add quality CC to all social media videos. CCAC contacts Senators pushing OBM for WEB ACCESS. Every day, volunteers contact many video content owners to use Quality CC, offer to add quality CC to short videos for free or at cost. Media – part of life!

CCAC also participates in Cinema and TV media advocacy, distributes media captioning news, and more…more…more (e.g. April 2016, success for Florida TV station).

AIR TRAVEL ACCESS campaign, info on http://ccacaptioning.org/captioning-transportation/ – CCAC confers directly with USA DOT and we hope to see this develop in 2016. CCAC Let’s fly together – contact us to help. Volunteers welcome.

CAPTIONING TRAINING INFORMATION project. – info here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/144wc5uxvxjjnvB-akUcs3V1Sj15Q8PDKqbLP7IMYg8A/edit
NEW CCAC MOVIE – WE ARE THE CCAC – ENJOY here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5cTKUxgG2M

GOVERNMENT MEETINGS NEED LIVE CAPTIONING – ONSITE AND ONLINE. City council to state level to national – quality CC required.

Ongoing smaller captioning advocacy by many CCAC members every day! We contact TV stations, Internet video producers, schools, churches, employers and others Join discussions in CCAC member forum online. For two examples, Sesame Street new videos need quality CC when published; Leading non-profit for Women in Politics needs CC for all webinars, and many others.

CCAC activities to help with also:
Advocacy projects as above, or a new one you want to do. If there is an area of everyday life where captioning is lacking, why not put yourself forward to lead or participate in a small team which can co-ordinate advocacy activities?

Writers and contributors: If you like writing, you can submit articles about captioning to us for publication or we can help you submit them to external publications to raise awareness and increase provision of captioning

Film-makers: If you have camera equipment and editing skills, you could make a short film or slideshow about your experience of captioning that CCAC can promote via social media and our websites.

Administration and book-keeping: We need volunteers to help us keep track of new members, donations, sponsors, and more essential tasks for the organization.
Web developers and digital marketing experts: We need help to design new web pages and digital promotional materials

Social media leaders: A lot of our work takes place over social media and we need people to monitor and stimulate activity on our various channels

Grants leader: CCAC gives grants for live event captioning to stimulate provision. We are seeking a volunteer who can help deliver outreach activities to support this alongside a fabulous small team in place now

Hearing loss and related Groups Collaborations and Liasons: We need volunteers to continue and develop new working relationships between CCAC and other organizations that support people with hearing loss, deafness, disabilities, education, media, etc.

Fundraising: CCAC is a non-profit organization that needs to raise funds in order to grow its activities. We would be very keen to hear from people with fundraising skills who may be able to assist us in this

Marketing the CCAC and the CCAC Mission – all tasks above are part of this, yet here, someone to use an identified open source system to keep track of it all and more. Yes you can!

REGISTRATION OPEN! CAPTION STUDIES CON AUG 1-2 2016

THIS IS THE FIRST CONFERENCE OF IT’S KIND! YOU ARE INVITED TO REGISTER NOW AND SEND THIS MESSAGE TO ALL YOUR NETWORKS WHO MAY BE INTERESTED IN CAPTIONING TOO – YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING TO LOVE AND USE CAPTIONING!

All information about the Con is here: CAPTIONSTUDIES.WOU.EDU
It’s Free, all Online, and Captioned too.
REGISTER NOW USING THIS LINK: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1wrt3nZWYz-U_d2Ti3_8DKzr54DTIPMYHiABPNUSzzag/viewform?c=0&w=1
CCAC is very proud to be one of the sponsors of this exciting event and in fact, we are jumping for joy – see you online Augusst 1 and 2. Let’s Talk Captioning!

CCAC IS PLACE 2 B 4 CAPTIONING ADVOCACY
CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM
CCACAPTIONING.ORG

Global Accessibility Awareness Day – Let’s Do it!

I’m sitting in Logan Airport in Boston today and it looks like I have 45 minutes (only! darn) of free wireless connection here in terminal C. Time to type quickly – and a short post about the importance of this day – May 19th – #GAAD

It’s the 5th year of raising awareness about how vital – we say life-saving too – is an accessible web – the world wide web – for all of us.

So much of life is “e-” now – e-learning, communications, shopping banking and importantly, human relationships! For us also, for the CCAC, it’s vital for captioning advocacy, much needed.

A short video we like a lot about this GAAD stuff is here:

And more information here: https://www.w3.org/WAI/perspectives/captions.html

And here: http://www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/

Coincidentally for the CCAC – big news – and also with a salute for this special day, we are in the process of changing our webpages, so chock full of good information – to make them accessible – bear with us as it’s the first time we are using a consultant to help with this. Soon!

CCAACAPTIONING.ORG
CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM

LIFE IS ON THE WEB THESE DAYS – ALL MEDIA INCLUDING LIVE EVENTS ONLINE – STREAMING – MUST HAVE QUALITY CAPTIONING – ASK FOR IT AND KEEP ASKING

Where Are All the Politicians with Hearing Differences?

YOO HOO – WHERE ARE YOU?

Is hearing loss and deafness still too much stigma to show us your hearing aids, implants, lip-reading, or use of captioning? We need you – we millions of people with hearing differences globally. We’re not shy to talk about this in the CCAC!

Aiming to develop a list, here’s our start today. Please add your own information to this in comments or email to CCACaptioning@gmail.com

With more elected officials on any level with hearing differences, we can see some of our goals met, right? Yes.

HOW about you? Do you want to stand for election? Run for office? Do it! Let us know.

AND – WHO will be help develop this list and take it forward in good ways? For example, talk to these folks now listed to help us advocate for quality captioning in all places needed? to advise us about how to reach other politicians? etc. Volunteer or a small team needed please. You? Say yes – with an email to CCACaptioning@gmail.com now.

 

(Image is book cover by Philip Seib)

CCAC LIST:

CURRENT OFFICE HOLDERS – ANY COUNTRY, ANY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT: 

HOH, deafened, oral deaf:
Mojo Mathers, New Zealand – lip reading and hopefully Captions
Pilar Lima, Spain – SLUser
someone in Estonia we’re told – name?
someone in UK who heads a parliamentary committee on deafness
Lady Hove, UK wears hearing aids (patron of hoh group)

Rand Paul, USA congress – hearing aids

SLUser
Adam Kosa ( Hungary)
Helga Stevens ( Belgium Flanders).

SLUsers use Captioning sometimes

 

FORMER HOH/deafened/deaf politicians:

Bill Clinton, USA, – hearing aids

Gary Malkowski, Canada (SLU?)

 

 

 

CCAC = CAPTIONING ACTIVISM + COMMUNITY

CCACAPTIONING.ORG
CCACAPTIONING@GMAIL.COM
LET’S TALK CAPTIONING!

CAPTION STUDIES CONFERENCE! HEAR THIS!

IT’S HERE! DRUM ROLL! CCAC is very proud to announce the USA’s first CAPTIONING CONFERENCE! All invited to participate online this August 1-2. Stay tuned and see below as information from the source (WOU) spreads on conference webpage, in CCAC Members’ Forum, Social Media, and more. So exciting: http://captionstudies.wou.edu/

MORE:
Caption Studies 2016 Conference Announcement [ http://captionstudies.wou.edu/ ]

The first annual Caption Studies conference in the United States takes place August 1st and 2nd of 2016. Hosted by Western Oregon University, the first conference will feature two days worth of speakers and panels presenting on an array of different caption-related topics—from closed-captioning to captioning research to CART to a caption user focus group. The three strands emphasized at the conference are advocacy, practice, and academic/research. There are presentations from group of stakeholders.

A free virtual conference, i.e. all panels and presentations will be streamed to the web and shown to anyone interested, the conference strives to model best practices for accessible conferences and accessible content online. All videos will be captioned, and all live events will have live, real-time CART captioning.

The conference keynote is Dr. Sean Zdenek, long-time closed caption and accessibility researcher from Texas Tech University. Zdenek’s book, Reading Sounds, was recently released to much support and acclaim.

For more information go to: captionstudies.wou.edu. [http://captionstudies.wou.edu/] captionstudies.com and captionstudiesconference.com both redirect to this same URL.

You can find us at Twitter as @captionstudies. [https://twitter.com/captionstudies]
We plan to use the hashtag: #caption16
The conference Facebook page is here: [https://www.facebook.com/captionstudies/?ref=bookmarks]

If you would like semi-regular announcements regarding the Caption Studies conference, such as when conference registration is open, if and when different speakers or presenters have confirmed, or when more information about 2017 becomes available, watch our Twitter feed. You can also sign up for email notifications here: http://eepurl.com/bWCP0v. All emails on this list will only be used for conference related announcements.

This conference is generously supported by Western Oregon University’s College of Education, Strada Communications, 3 Play Media, and the CCAC.

CaptionStudies17 is tentatively planned to take place face-to-face at Western Oregon University in late July or early August 2017. If you are interested in potentially presenting or sponsoring some part of the conference, please be in touch.

WHAT DO WE DO IN THE CCAC? WE ADVOCATE, EDUCATE, RAISE AWARENESS, PARTICIPATE, COMMUNICATE, COLLABORATE AND INSPIRE! #CAPTIONWORLDNOW

ccacaptioning@gmail.com