How Do I Add Closed Captioning?

[Mike Raff]

Hi, Brian

I think you’ve already learned about your two best options: having somebody else do the captioning or biting the bullet and purchasing Maccaption.

A third option is UniSay Subtitler (https://www.unisay.com/subtitler.htm). I’ve never used them, but from the website it sounds like an interesting alternative. They create the subtitled files (at some price/minute rate) and you download them from their website and use some free software (PC only, but you can export as QT) to insert it into your FCP timeline (and fine tune it as needed).

But before you go spending money on any of these, you should clarify one point: does the station merely want the show closed captioned starting Jan. 1 or do they think the FCC requires that the show be closed captioned starting Jan. 1 ?

This is a very important distinction. A cursory reading of the FCC regs says that after Jan. 1, all new programming by local stations must be captioned. But there are some exemptions, which may apply to your program.

For example:

“locally produced and distributed non-news programming with no repeat value”

and

“programming provided by program providers with annual gross revenues under $3 million”

(See these and more at: https://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html)

So if the station station simply wants your program closed captioned as a convenience to their viewers, you’ll have to find a way (and you might ask them to share the cost of this “convenience”).

But if they are only asking because they think they are required by law to broadcast the show with captions, then you might be able to persuade them otherwise and save yourself considerable expense and inconvenience.

Good luck! And let us know what happens.

Mike Raff
Richmond, VA

[Brian Mills]

Wayne:

You mentioned exporting your final show via Aja or Kona card, but if I bought MacCaption, I couldn’t create a final MiniDV master with the caption track on Line 21? Is DV even capable of this? I am a one-man operation doing a weekly real estate show and master to MiniDV to transfer to Beta, do I have to invest in all the hardware to go to a big tape format in-house?

Brian Mills
Videographer

[Brian Mills]

Thanks Mike, those criteria ceratinly DO apply to me, and I thought is was obnoxious that a cable station require such a complcated process for a local real estate infomercial! However, if they do require me to go CC, I can put this on regular MiniDV with the proper CC text file, right?

Brian Mills
Videographer

[Dan Riley]

There are two parts to CCing, the first part where someone spends
8 to 12 hours actually writing it all out for the screen ( I don’t want
our shop to do that) and then there’s the encoding. I’d like to see
about doing the encoding in house because many times I have the
cut-to-time version of the show done a week before it’s actually ready
for the dub house and CCing. (audio mix, color correction,
titles etc.) It could save us a few days if we had the CCing done
ahead of time and I just added it into the show here.
We do new national shows for air about 12 times per year.
They run hundreds or thousands of times after that (infomercials).
I think $3000 is overkill in this situation. Getting a plug in
for FCP that runs around $100 or so, that’s doable.
Who ever makes this thing will sell many of them. Remember,
every single show that airs on local broadcast or national cable
must have CCing starting in a month. We’ve been putting it
in our shows for 3 years, through the CC company and the
dub house, (where they make the dubmasters and add the
800#s).

Dan

[Dan Riley]

Great info Mike.
Your digging could have saved Brian and many others quite a bit of time
and expense. But if the station requires it no matter what, then someone
might have to ssplain to station management, “that’s ok, we can run it somewhere else” 🙂

Dan

[Mark Maness]

Oh yes… there is a DV version that you use with DV footage. The program just creates your captioning in a Quicktime format then its up to you in import it into FCP and render the timeline. From there, you can write it to any tape format that you have. But, of course, the DV version is for DV only.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions

[Brian Mills]

You know, Dan, that is what I feel like saying!!!

But let’s get back to Worst Case Scenario:

Mike:

I checked out Unisay’s website, and their Subtitler program says you have to render your project to 720×486 in order to properly place the CC text on Line 21. But here’s the rub; if I’m going out MiniDV to 720×480 anyway, does that mean the CC info will be lost? Does anyone know if 720×480 MiniDV can properly carry the Line 21 CC track? Is there a way to avoid the obnoxious render time to render out my 30 minute show from 480 to 486 lines!

Brian Mills
Videographer

[Mark Maness]

Well, Brian…. That’s where if you pay a little more for the exacat program, you’ll get what you want. MacCaption DV has a list price of $1995. And this is for DV only, so there is a way to caption DV correctly without the need for a hardware encoder. Yes, the price is about the same as software with a hardware encoder but its all done within the computer with no generational loss of having to make a tape and caption from that.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions

[Nate Weaver]

“Does anyone know if 720×480 MiniDV can properly carry the Line 21 CC track?”

The answer is no. Only higher end formats that carry more lines like Digibeta, BetaSP can carry Closed Caption data.

The plug-ins for any computer based solution require that your media be of the 720×486 variety. It’s those extra 3 lines on the top and bottom (which are not active lines) that carry the CC data (among other things). This then requires also that your interface card will pass those lines to the output deck.

New website, new work online:
https://www.nateweaver.net

[John Calhoun]

DV does carry line 21, but does so in the VAUX data area. The deck decodes line 21 on playback.

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