Filed under: Audio A, Vidiots | Tags: cc commercial, closed captioning, disabilities act, hd broadcast, hearing impaired, tv ad
Captioning your commercial is still considered an option by most advertisers, but recent observations of captioning practices lead me to believe it is becoming a necessity.
Most of us are familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires Closed Captioning on all program-length material, whether TV programs or extended infomercials. Realizing that approximately 140 people out of every 1,000 suffer from some hearing “trouble” (source: http://gri.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php), many advertisers also choose to caption their commercials.
While captioning your commercials also benefits people with perfect hearing that watch television in places where the sound is purposefully low or inaudible – sports bars, doctor and hospital waiting rooms, and airport gates, I recently discovered another excellent reason for captioning your commercial.
While working out on my treadmill, I switched my television display to the Closed Captioning option rather than crank up the audio level. I’ve been helping out with CC encoding at VTA for awhile now, and one of the first things I was taught was to insert a “CC OFF” bit at the end of the program or commercial. But while trodding along on the treadmill, I was amazed at the number of shows and commercials that obviously didn’t have this command. When it is missing, the final captioning stays on the screen until the next captioned material begins playing.
If that next commercial is yours, and it isn’t captioned, the captioning from the previous piece stays visible over a third of YOUR spot for about 20 seconds, distracting viewers from YOUR message and possibly covering up valuable information on YOUR spot. You or your client have spent good money for air time and your message may be getting lost to 14% of the hearing-impaired and who knows how many in bars and waiting rooms because someone else omitted the “CC OFF” bit.
VTA offers Closed Captioning services for Standard Definition and High Definition programs and commercials at competitive rates. Captioning can be done in real time or offline, roll-up or pop-on. Clients can provide text in a MS Word document or we can transcribe the commercial and insert captions. Even if you choose not to caption your commercial, VTA can insert a “CLEAR CC” command at the beginning of your spot which will ensure that previous captioning vanishes when your spot airs.
If you are interested in our captioning services, please contact Jodi, jodi.arminio@vta.com or Kelly, Kelly.dellinger@vta.com for pricing and scheduling information.
- David M. Turner
Filed under: Audio A | Tags: audio engineering, broadcast, cereproc, dvd commentaries, roger ebert, vocal database, voice
As a tragic complication after cancer surgery to remove his jaw, legendary film critic Roger Ebert lost the ability to speak. He relies on handwritten notes and a computer that synthesizes what he types. For most people, this would result in a life dependent on a random text-to-speech computerized voice. We’ve all had fun picking the voices for our GPS systems, but imagine if this was all you had to represent yourself?
Interestingly for Ebert, there is a Scottish company, CereProc, with a fascinating option. There are hours and hours of recordings of Ebert’s voice, from years of TV shows and numerous DVD commentaries. CereProc has combed through all those recordings to create a database of his voice for his daily vocabulary. According to CereProc, the average American uses about 2,000 words a day. Many of the words it can’t find already recorded were pieced together from syllables of other words.
CereProc has been able to create libraries for people who knew they were going to lose their voice and could pre-record their vocal database. In Ebert’s case, he’s fortunate that there are already a wealth of recordings of his voice. That is, if you can call anything about Ebert’s tragic situation fortunate. Take a minute and use your voice to say something nice to someone you care about or just go sing a song. You never know if that might be the last time you’ll be able to use your real voice. –Leslie Shapiro
Via Esquire Magazine
Filed under: Audio A | Tags: audio, audio engineering, boombox, disco, discolite, retro
A new display at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art will be turning eyes, and ears. Rewind Remix Replay: Design, Music & Everyday Experience is an exhibit celebrating the “material culture of music.” The display features everything from the classic Fender Stratocaster guitar to the iconic iPod. There’s even a whole section devoted to the humble boombox.
The boombox had its own subculture, and a style meant to attract attention. Sadly, bling was many times more important than sound quality. How loud more important than how good. Collector and photographer Lyle Owerko, who calls them “gargantuan conglomerations of electronics, lights and chrome-plated gadgetry,” thinks of them as “symbols of rebellion.” According to the museum, boomboxes were “designed deliberately to be as large and flashy as possible. They featured imposing speaker grills, large buttons and flashing lights and they broadcast big sounds. Highly conspicuous aurally and visually, they were effective as mechanisms of public display. The DiscoLite featured in this exhibition, for example, is a monolithic object whose flashing colored lights draw almost as much attention to its visual quality as its sound. The sounds of hip-hop and rap, the energy of break dancing, the writing of graffiti, Adidas shoes, cassette tapes, turntables and more all served as the signifying props of a unique aesthetic expression.”
So, what audio systems do you have that are museum quality? –Leslie Shapiro
