In summary:

• What is realtime closed captioning?
• How is it done?
• History note
• Legislation and demand for stenocaptioners
• Developing stenocaptioning skills
• Links

What is realtime closed captioning?

Live electronic subtitling of audio portion of television program - an almost instantaneous conversion of the spoken word to text. Captions are hidden (closed) in the TV picture and accessed by teletext TV or VCR.

How is it done?

Stenocaptioners (specially trained shorthand reporters) use a shorthand machine connected to a computer. The stenocaptioner writes a word or syllable in shorthand and the computer converts it to English text using a customised dictionary created by the captioner. The captions are transmitted to the studio control room where an encoder inserts them into the video signal.

History note

In March 1993 the first realtime captioned television program in Australia, The Great Debate, was broadcast by ABC-TV. Live captioned events since then include the funeral of Princess Diana, the AFL grand final and the Constitutional Convention.

Legislation and demand for stenocaptioners

Demand for stenocaptioners is likely to increase because of the passing in July 1998 of the Television Broadcasting Services (Digital Conversion) Act 1998.

Clause 38(4) of Schedule 4 to the Broadcasting Services Act sets out two primary objectives in relation to the determination of regulations for captioning:

• That, as far as is practicable, commercial and national television broadcasters should provide a captioning service for television programs transmitted during prime viewing hours (defined in clause 38 as 6 p.m. to 10.30 p.m.)
• That, as far as is practicable, broadcasters should provide a captioning service for television news programs and television current affairs programs transmitted outside prime viewing hours.

Developing stenocaptioning skills

1. Eliminate conflicts
2. Eliminate short forms and phrases that are syllables
3. Finger spell accurately
4. Define an outline to capitalise next word
5. Finetune phonetic dictionary
6. Define prefixes and suffixes
7. Read a quality national and local newspaper daily
8. Master punctuation skills
9. Make dictionary entries for at least the following:

• Prime Ministers past and present
• State and Federal Ministers
• State Premiers and Opposition leaders
• Meteorological and weather terms
• Major cities, rivers, mountains, oceans, highways, freeways, landmarks
• Major international figures
• Countries and their capitals
• Entertainers, celebrities of all types
• Aircraft and airlines
• Currency units– don’t forget the euro.
• Sports terms, names of awards and famous sports people
• Car makes and models
• Suburbs, councils, educational institutions, hospitals and local prominent persons
• Dog breeds
• Food and cooking terms
• Religions
• Major regional centres
• Names of newspapers and periodicals
• Opera and musical titles
• Names of composers, authors and philosophers
• Common first and last names
• Names of past and present political figures
• All the "-isms", such as Bolshevism, fascism, Nazism.
• Medical conditions and common drug names

Links

The SRAA Contacts page includes a listing of firms that offer a captioning service.

See the Links page for captioning-specific links.

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