Ongoing Saga on CC With HDTV by Pam Continues!
1 05 2007All..
A media reporter asked for stories on problem with CC and HDTV, so Pam Holmes wrote up a brief report on her problem in getting closed captioning up and running on her new HDTV. Read on, Readers..and you’ll scroan (I made up this word, but seems appropriate - combination of scream and groan).
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed
RT Admin.
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Dear [reporter’s name],
Thank you for asking about our experiences attempting to use HD TV digital captions.
I most definitely have a saga to tell as a result of ‘taking the dive’ and acquiring a new HDTV a few weeks ago. I have spent more hours that I wish to admit getting the cable company to supply a HD box that provides digital captions (or any captions at one point as they delivered the cable box with the captions disabled) and then getting it programmed right to support digital captions. After spending approximately 12 hours with cable company installers, cable company tech support, the TV manufacturer and the store that sold me the TV, I thought I was finally at a point where I had functionality of captions using the new digital captioning capabilities. I had learned that when a cable box is used the captions cannot be controlled from the TV remote control showing the digital captioning options, but must be controlled from the cable box via a hidden menu that comes with no instructions and which I learned how to access from Billy Mauldin copied here who went through a struggle to figure this out for his own set up. I thought I pretty much had this behind me and had digital captioning functioning well.
I went out of town for a week and returned to find the captions now display with the first couple letters cut off the left of the screen on some channels, and others with a bizarre showing of one line of captions in yellow (as selected) the next line throws up a black box that covers the TV viewing of the show and has the next line of captions in white on the bottom of this box. The very next captions go back to the yellow and then revert back to the black box covering the screen with the next line in white captions. You cannot really watch the show let alone read the captions. SURELY SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT! This is with no changes by me to any of the settings that were working successfully. The experience varies as you change from channel to channel with some of the yellow font captions to the center top of the viewing area.
In addition, while gone for a week, I visited my Aunt and Unclde who have a HDTV receiver and lovely large monitor with a satellite set up. We put on the digital captioning and depending on which color, font and background combination we selected in the captioning options, we sometimes could view captions as selected, other times we viewed captions but not as the color and fonts selected, and still other times we saw NO CAPTIONS as a result of the combination of color, font, and background color selections. My uncle who is a technology geek was amazed at the variables we witnessed. He did say his digital receiver was 3 years old.
This weekend I am going to try and capture the odd captioning I am seeing with my digital camera as I think you have to see it to believe it. My hunch is there may be something wrong with the digital cable box as with a cable set up I have learned that the captions come from the cable box. Ron Bibler copied here can correct me if I am mistaken. Of course, none of this is in the TV User Manual.
I feel I am technology inclined and thus have concern for those who are not so. The experience has been an eye opener. I am uncertain if Sheri shared my original posting to the National Association of the Deaf Technology Committee on the tale I shared in getting my TV set up originally. If not, I will forward this to you as well.
Sincerely,
Pam Holmes
Madison, WI
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Ed’s note: when I asked Pam for permission to repost her remarks (above), she responded with this:
Sure. Let me know what kind of feedback you get. I can’t be the only one experiencing this. Last Saturday, the sales rep traded out my new TV for the one I saw working on the demo floor. Same problems when I got home. This tells me the problem is in the Cable box generating the digital captions; whereas, in the showroom the TV was hooked up to a huge antenna on the roof of the store. So the cable company is coming back on Wednesday evening and I emphasized the importance of the installer being very familiar with digital captioning programming of the digital box. I also am fairly confident they will not get this right so called Direct TV to come out and set up service in hopes they can master this. Should be interesting to see what prevails.
Pam Holmes-
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I’m glad that the inadequate closed captioning problems (with HDTV) are being addressed. I wish NAD would aggressively pursue this problem with the FCC. I, too, bought a new HDTV and am dismayed with the cc quality. There are two big problems as compared to analog programs: (1) the captions are sooooo small and (2) the time span between the spoken word and the cc are MUCH WORSE. The only positive note is the superior picture quality of the show.
I once worked for a wise man who said, “All pioneers get is arrows in the ass.”
Add me to the holey butt pioneer club!
We have had a satellite digital receiver and DVR box since August. I too finally figured out how to turn off the captions in the TV and turn on the digital captions in the receiver box.
Our problem is the satellite service provider. There are captions on several HD channels but not on others. The channels of the local broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) do not have captions on the HD channels but do have captions on the SD channels. Local Fox HD channel does have captions. TNT-HD used to have captions; now it doesn’t. And, on and on.
Dish network told us: oh, our receivers have a problem and we cannot provide captions on HD channels. A lie! Because some HD channels do have captions which means the capacity IS there; but Dish network is not passing them through on some other channels.
Dish network told us: oh, we provide captions on the SD channels so we are in compliance with FCC regulations. Another Lie! I verified with that Dish network IS required to pass through the captions on the HD channels.
We have filed a complaint with the FCC and they are currently working on the issue. We had the option of dropping the Dish network (and the captioning problems) and moving to a different satellite provider. (Don’t worry, Ed. We CAN say the name of the provider here because the complaint filed with the FCC is a public record.)
My partner is a “mother-father-Deaf” retired Air-Force Chief Master Sargeant. I am a retired civil servant, civil rights advocate. We decided together, “Naw, we’re not letting them off the hook. We are going to keep the service and follow up on the FCC complaint no matter how long it takes to force them to do it right.”
Our Civil Rights laws are worthless if we do not use them as intended.
Hang in there, Pam. You are not alone; and - as usual - you efforts benefit so many others! Thank You.
Keep at it, Jane and Pam. Water is liquid, but if constantly moving, it can move mountains so can ur persistences. As u said you two are not alone and ure right about needing to invoke our rights - especially when silence means approval of status quo which we do not want to convey to the decision makers (i.e. FCC) so need to invoke our rights for Civil Rights Laws and make use of them as u said. FCC, however, needs to realize if there is one person complaining, it means there probably are about 100 that will not complain.
That settles it. Until the suppliers and the merchandisers get their act together, I am not buying ANY HDTV until a few years after the 2008 digital conversion act becomes effective. With the free analog/digital converters that will be made available then, there is no real reason to start changing TVs until the issues are ironed out. Meanwhile, there are always better things to do that don’t include assuming the couch potato position.
One thing I’ve done is use SVideo instead of Component cabling. Granted the quality is not as “great”, but the quality IS better than the normal SD channels. Using SVideo, you can then tell your box to output as 16×9 and now you have better-than-SD quality video (slightly worse than component HD), but now your TV is providing the captions (not the cablebox). However, there are still timing issues (especially FOX) where the captions show up “late”. Periodically I will get a show that garbles my CC (most of the time it is on FOX — when we watch House or 24). I cancelled my HD service but am getting HD over the air so it’s not costing me anything to view HD (so I can always watch the SD channel if the captions are really bad) and I get to enjoy my DVR (taping 2 shows at once) :).
This is SO distressing. I kept thinking people who couldn’t get HD captions must be technological nimwits — you know, the kind of people who call customer service because when the screen says “Hit Any Key to Continue” they can’t find the “Any” key.
The fact that they simply don’t work makes me incredibly angry at companies who take the millions of us for granted…
I recently upgraded my DireTV DVR to the new HDTV version. At first I could not get Closed Captioning to work. There is nothing in the user guide that tells you how to turn on captioning. I have now figured it out. I found it in the following menu: Help and Settings/Stup/Display. This menu has three “tabs” at top: Preferences/Captioning/Clock. Menu opens up on the Preferences tab. It’s not obvious how to change tabs - you need to use the “up arrow” to highllight “Preferences” and then the “right arrow” to highlight Captioning.
Once there, there are options to turn captioning on, choose font, choose colors and opacity for the captioning messages. The opacity option is great - it allows for a “translcent” black background for the caption text that is much less obtrusive. The font oiptions are also great!
The only problame is that anytime you want to turn captioning on or off, you need to get througfh all the above clicks to get to the captioning menu tab.
Note that this is totally independent of and has nothing to do with the “close caption” button on your TV remote. I believe this wouild work fro any TV - it works on all of mine!
Same problem as described repeatedly in HDTV forums.. bought two new Sony HDTVs and have digital Time Warner cable. No captions appear with any combination of CC choices for the TV or cable box. Have queried both T-W, Scientific American (maker of cable box), and Sony — all to no avail. I’m frustrated but not quite enough to get rid of HDTV picture.