Just awhile ago, a commercial ran on one of our local television stations about closed captioning for local newscasts. One of our local lawyers sponsors the commercial and sponsors the cost of the service for our primetime local newscasts on that same station.
Every time I see that commercial, which shows closed captioning going on during a newscast, I ask myself — just how does closed captioning work?
I know I could probably “Google” the phrase and get a quick answer, which I will do if I must. But I thought, first, I would ask all of you out there reading this — anybody have a quickie explanation of how closed captioning works?
Because, as I sit here watching Iowa caucuses news, late shows, and other stuff on television, I cannot imagine anyone being able to type fast enough to do an ongoing, usually very accurate, caption of what I’m watching/hearing on television. I type about 60 words a minute, which was good enough to land a typist job for a few years. But there’s no way I could possibly type as fast as the closed captions go up on the screen.
So how’s it done? Some sort of delayed broadcasting, I suppose? Explanations anyone?
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