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 over 9,000 hours of prerecorded
programming every year for the television and home video industries.
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 tape playback, the captions are part of the videotape or
other media. This includes television series, training tapes, theatrical
releases on home video and much more. Up to 16 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 of the program
that includes time code that exactly matches the master. Each tape is
logged in by NCI's Traffic Department and previewed for completeness
by traffic personnel. The tape 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 has been 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 compete, the file is transmitted to the client or designated encoding
facility using either electronic data transfer (i.e., direct computer-to-computer
data transmission, email, or Internet) or delivering the file on floppy
disk. The client or encoding facility then integrates the caption data
with the video portion of the program.
