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Anyone keeping up with closed capitoning technology, especially with
high definition TV? Evidently a multitude of existing cable boxes and video
recorders are not compatible with closed captioning tracks because of hardware and software.

I had guests for Thanksgiving, and a couple of the oldsters tried
to get closed captioning on my TV, in order to follow the game better,
but we couldn't figure it out. I need to get a new TV, even though my 15-year old Toshiba set works well. It has no provisions for close captions. Also, it seems that many Cox digital
converter boxes (Scientific Atlanta Explorer models) in Northern Virginia lack circuitry for close capitoning, even though Cox's online manuals show that feature.

Thanks.

On my 18 year old GE, you simply mute the sound and closed captioning begins.

It is part of my job to actually encode the closed captioning into the Tomorrow's World telecast. It is required that programs in the USA are closed captioned, which is really just a coded text message hidden along the very top line of the screen, that is then converted by your television (yes, all sets have CC capability).

Video/DVD players, cable boxes, and the like are not CC enabled. It is the media itself that has the captioning, which is encoded through the television set converter.

Most programs do their closed captioning using a computer program call Caption Maker, that syncs the CC text to the video and then creates a "black movie" (which is really just a black screen with the very top line encoded with the CC). This movie is then imported into an AVID editing machine (or other video editor) and then mixed (via picture in picture effects or the like) into the entire program in real time.

When the final program is exported, the captioning is embedded in the media signal, whether it is to be delivered on DVD, Beta, DV tape, or am HD format. When the CC function on your set is enabled, it automatically knows what to look for and the captioning is displayed.

Since I have cable, I'm not worried about it for now. My analog sets all have functioning CC.
Tried to get one in BBb, but I was told it wasn't professional enough.

My first two kids had very bad colic. I was assigned the night shift. My solution was to throw them over my shoulder (putting pressure on their tummy to help alleviate the discomfort), put in earplugs, and and turn on closed captioning on the TV.
The TV I had at the time was a plain off-the-shelf 25" tube set from Sears. Didn't cost more than a couple hundred and had built-in CC without anything special added. I had (analog) cable at the time, and I believe the CC also worked on video tapes. I think I had also a DVD player by the second one. It is always fun to watch the CC on live news programs, and to see just how garbled many of the words are.
I cannot see spending $1900 on a 24" set just to get closed captioning, unless this was a very long time ago or there was some other extenuating reason. The poor person was probably taken advantage of by unscroupulous salespeople. I work in IT, and it reminds me of when people bring in their new laptop to show off (and then have me fix it.) They "only" spent a few thousand on it, and I really hate to tell them it is a POS worth no more than a few hundred.

MartyNeilan wrote: . . . . The TV I had at the time was a plain off-the-shelf 25" tube set from Sears. Didn't cost more than a couple hundred and had built-in CC without anything special added. I had (analog) cable at the time, and I believe the CC also worked on video tapes. I think I had also a DVD player by the second one. It is always fun to watch the CC on live news programs, and to see just how garbled many of the words are. . . .

The closed caption text, from what I've been reading, can be supplied directly from a written news script, or by voice recognition software.

Also, the voice recognition software may be trained to recognize the voice of a special, particular speaker, so, for higher quality, news providers may have that special speaker repeat the live, on-screen dialogue into the closed captioning system.

Subtitles (technically different from closed captions) are imbedded in recorded media such as tapes and DVDs. I assume that such media players that also have digital tuners are required to feature closed captions when their tuners are in operation.

I sense that the re-broadcast of high definition programing is not very successful because of hardware and software issues which cause playback systems to crash or to function only with long delays. For example, the system may be looking for closed captioning data on one track, when the data was modulated into another track. All of this is well beyond my pay grade.

My 31" Toshiba analog & digital set (without closed captioning) came from Costco one month after closed captioning (CC) was required by US law to be in every set. The set is otherwise great, but the cable box's software doesn't feature CC like it is supposed to. The cable company hasn't called or responded to my e-mail about it either.