BACKGROUND:
In 1980, the National Captioning Institute (NCI) created
the first closed captioned, prerecorded programs for national viewing.
Today, with the world's most advanced captioning facilities and highly
trained captioning professionals, NCI captions thousands of hours of
prerecorded programming every year.
WHAT IS PRERECORDED CAPTIONING?
Prerecorded captioning (also known as off-line captioning)
is the captioning of recorded video programs so that at the time of
telecast or media playback, the captions are part of the videotape or
other media. This includes television series, training tapes, theatrical
releases on home video/DVD, on-line videos, and much more. Up to 8 employee
hours are required to provide pop-on captions for a one-hour prerecorded
program.
There are five steps involved in prerecorded captioning:
1) Log-In, Preview and Digitalization: The broadcaster
or producer provides NCI with a duplicate videocassette, DVD, or digital
video file of the program that includes time code that exactly matches
the master. Each video is logged in by NCI's Traffic Department and
previewed for completeness by traffic personnel. The video is inspected
for sequential and error-free time code, workable audio, and video quality
at the time it is being digitized onto one of NCI's non-linear servers.
This preview is essential since it serves to identify problems before
the captioning process, allowing NCI personnel, in cooperation with
clients, to take the necessary steps to rectify the situation. This
quality-control step is of utmost importance when programs are deadline
sensitive.
2) Caption Preparation: At one of NCI's networked
caption preparation workstations, a caption editor watches and listens
to the program and enters a verbatim text of the dialogue, sound effects
and other essential non-verbal features into NCI's proprietary captioning
system. The editor breaks the text into discrete captions, assigns appropriate
screen placement to each caption and times the appearance and disappearance
of each caption with the associated audio and video.
3) Editor Review: NCI's caption editors are responsible
for conducting the initial review of their completed work. The completed
caption file is compared against the program to check for accuracy and
timing. All terms are researched using NCI's reference library, reliable
Internet sites and external resources. The editor also runs a spell
check program that is integrated into NCI's caption preparation software.
Any changes or adjustments are made on the caption text file. The caption
editor submits the caption file to a Senior Editor or a Section Supervisor
for a quality review.
4) Quality Review: The Senior Editor or Section
Supervisor is responsible for the final quality control check of the
caption file. The entire captioned program is checked, and errors and
inconsistencies between segments are corrected. A copy of the caption
file is then archived in NCI's caption file database. Reformats and
transcripts are readily available.
5) Ready for Encoding: Once the final caption file
is complete, the file is transmitted to the client or designated encoding
facility using either electronic data transfer (i.e.,email or Internet
FTP) or delivering the file on a CD. The client or encoding facility
then integrates the caption data with the video portion of the program.
