[Bill Sergio]

By the way, 85% of what airs in infomercial time are NOT infomercials but NON-infomercial entertainment shows.

Also, most of our infomercial do NOT air late night. The biulk of the TV time we buy is Mon thru Fri afternoons and weekends DAYTIME.

I appreciate your posting what you did, please don’t take my commments the wrong way.

When a large group of broadcast TV stations decide to insist on Captioning then we don’t fight it.

One last comment, while it is true that any successful infomercial will ALWAYS gross over $15 million in the first 6 months of airing it, our profit margins are very tight.

I thought about it, and I feel that I have a responsibility to add the close captioning myself—I had never thought about it before. My gripe is with the few companies that are charging so much money for software and hardware–$5,000 and up!

As I said, I am writinga program right now to add line 21 captioning and I invite any other programmers out there to work with me and we will sell the software for under $50.

APPLE COMPUTER says that they want to make software and hardware to help the handicap? Right? Well let them put their money where there mouth is–they could easily publish the source code that would allow anyone to add line 21 closed captioning–I bet they already have at least 50 programmers who could write it in less than an hour–so why doesn’t Apple publish this code?

The Infomercial King

[Bill Sergio]

Hi,

I can tell that you don’t buy TV time. The REAKL WORLD works like this:

1) All the exemptions you mention are NOT automatic and require that you make an application to the FCC and our attorney says that he can count on one hand the number of exemptions granted and the process takes from months to over 1 year.

2) The TV station say they want it Closed Captioned or it doesn’t air and they don’t care what you say! This is the real world….

Also, every infomercial that is airing will always gross over $15 milion a year MINIMUM and many of my infomercials have grossed over $160 million in the first 6 months. Infomercials are a big business.

I think Close Captioning should be required but I think it should be a system other than the on eimplemented which places a financial and time burden on everyone.

The Infomercial King

[Bill Sergio]

We air almost ecxclusively on 900 broadcast stations and about 400 stations emaled us that they will no longer accept any infomercial or spot (2 minutes or less) or any type of programming without Closed Captioning because the FCC starting fining stations $40,000 for each show without it.

I read the regs and the law went into effect last January for BROADCAST stations and it is now being enforced. It clearly applies to broadcast stations and I can’t tell from reading the regs if it also applies to cable.

The Infomercial King

[Bill Sergio]

I made my fortune by EARNING it and not by throwing away $300 per tape to do captioning! I will take the time to write the software myself which I can do because I am an expert in xcode and Quicktime, but it would be nice if I can connect with other programmers who would like to join in my efforts so we can make captioning affordable for everyone.

I will NOT throw awy $5,000 on siftware that should cost $30 or be free!

I the next few months the impact from this will start hitting all of the small production companies who can’t afford to spend $300 per tape because their clients won’t pay it for a 2 minute commercial.

The Infomercial King

[Bill Sergio]

There are NO exceptions! To even apply for an exception takes months to over 1 year for a response and it would be hard to argue that you can’t afford to Closed Caption something when you are buying millions of dollars worth of TV time. So your suggestion is misleading and NOT even an option.

In fact, the FCC has stated that NO exceptions will be made for commercials so your suggestion is is misleading to other readers who think that they might not have to do it.

Further, when a station says they want a tape closed captioned, then you had better send it closed captioned ot it will not air.

The Infomercial King

[Bill Sergio]

I have read it several times. If you have a point to make, why don’t you make your point so everyone can understand what you are trying to say.

The regualtions are very clear and when the stations tell me they won’t accept tapes without Closed Captioning that is a message that is certainly clear as compared with your cryptic posting.

So what is your point?

The Infomercial King

[Bill Sergio]

Here is what finally worked.

The manual for the Media 100 is WRONG on connecting BVW-50 decks—-their connection directions are NOT correct.

The BVW-50 and many other BVW decks require a REFERENCE signal as others here have suggested. HOWEVER, if you connect the Composite Output of the Junction Box to the Video INPUT of the BVW-50 directluy it will NOT record–you will see the pause button flashing which indicates that there is NO reference signal.

I finally got it to work by connecting the COMPOSITE OUTPUT of the Junction Box to a SONY Monitor video IN and the SONY Monitor’s Video OUTPUT to the VIDEO IN of the BVW-50 Deck. That worked and it recorded. The picture was great BUT it seems to have shifted the colors in the recording. The BVW-50 records perfectly if I connect it to me camera so I know it isn’t the deck.

Somehow the SONY monitor is adding a reference signal to the output that the BVW-50 accepts.

Still would like a better solution if anyone has one? Thanks!

The Infomercial King

[Bill Sergio]

I stand corrected. It is the FCC.

I think there should be a law that adds Closed Captioning for people with disabilities. But I think that the government should have implemented one of several other methods that would be much less expensive and easier or they should have worked with industry to provide the means.

There are a lot of producers who can’t afford to spend $5,000 to $9,000 to do this in-house.

By the way, I tried several ways to do captioningn and I must say that using an external line 21 encoder is the best method with the best results. The software only approaches I tried gave crappy results!

My suggestion so far is to either send it out for $300 or to buy an encoder box and NOT to use a software only approach.

None of the software I lookled at writes the byte codes directly to line 21 and I am working with several programmers–I program in xcode myself to write a program that will write this directly which would be the best solution.

The Infomercial King

[Bill Sergio]

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

How can I repay you?

I was looking everywhere for a manual for the BVW-50 deck I bought on eBay!

If you ever need TV time,call me!

Or if you need a question about programming in C/C++, .NET. or xcode answered!

That manual is a Godsend!

The Infomercial King

[Bill Sergio]

Hi, thank you for responding!

I have a UVW-1400 and it works fimne and for that deck I do the same thinga s you suggest.

In the hardware manual for Media100i xr it specially gives the example of a BVW-50 deck and says to connect the composite IN of the junction box to the composite OUT of the BVW-50. When I first read this I thought it was a mistake–I tried this and it does NOT work.

1) I checked the M100 boards and the junction box component out and they are fine.
2) The strange thing is that the PUSE button flashes and the tape never moves. But if I connect the deck to a camera it records perfectly so I know that the deck is okay.

I think it must be a problem with the reference signal that the BVW-50 deck needs. And I also think the Media100 manual is wrong about how to attach the BVW-50 deck.

Where on a BVW-50 should the reference signal be put into?

The Infomercial King