Q. How do I turn on closed captions?
A. Press the closed caption button on your remote control to activate the captions. Sometimes remote controls have the closed caption feature in the on-screen or set-up menu option. Select "CC1". If you have difficulties, consult the television user's manual.
Return to FAQ list

Q: Are closed captions a part of the videotape so that when I copy a tape to another tape, will the captions copy also?
A: Yes.
Return to FAQ list

Q: When will there be more captioned television programs?
A: The FCC requires increased amounts of captioning every two years. By January 2006, close to 100% of what airs on television will be captioned.
Return to FAQ list

Q: Where can I find a movie theater that shows captioned movies?
A: National theater chains offer information and schedules about captioned films they're screening. Insight Cinema (http://www.insightcinema.org/), formerly Tripod Captioned Films, is a popular resource for finding captioned feature films in the U.S.
Return to FAQ list

Q: Is there one style standard for captioning?
A: No, there isn't one style standard. VAC attempts to provide captioning in a style consistent with the expressed desires of our consumers.
Return to FAQ list

Q: Why are captions in upper case and subtitles in sentence case?
A: Upper-case captions are easier to read from a distance. In addition, some decoders do not effectively display lower-case characters with descenders (p, g, q). Subtitles are generally in "mixed" case because they use larger, more readable fonts.
Return to FAQ list

Q: Why do captions look different on different TV stations?
A: There are no standards for how captions look. Different captioning companies use varying styles and appearances. The caption decoder itself provides a level of appearance standardization, but captioning styles will vary widely. VAC's caption style was developed in cooperation with VAC's Consumer Advisory Board as well as VAC's clients
Return to FAQ list

Q: What does the ">>" mean?
A: This symbol is used at the beginning of a line to indicate a change in speaker.
Return to FAQ list

Q. I see a white box instead of a letter and sometimes letters are missing from a word. Why?
A. These are considered transmission errors. When you see a white box, that means that there is a problem with the video signal. The electronic caption data transmission has been damaged and the decoder cannot correctly interpret the caption data. This can occur when the caption information is interrupted by a lightning strike or other means.
Return to FAQ list

Q: What is transmission time?
A: Two caption characters can be sent per frame of video, at a rate of 30 frames per second. So a full line of captioning (32 characters) takes about a half second to load into a decoder. Sixty characters can load in one second. Transmission time is that time it takes for a caption to be sent to your decoder.
Return to FAQ list

Q: What is "line 21"?
A: If you have a television with a vertical hold adjustment, you can adjust it until a black bar rolls across the screen. The black bar is the vertical blanking interval (VBI), or the "between frames" part of a television signal. You have one on every television, even if you don't have a vertical hold adjustment. The VBI consists of a number of lines of video. The 21st line is for closed-caption information.
Return to FAQ list

Q: Why are there misspellings on news and sports?
A: A real-time captioner captions these shows. They type on a stenograph machine in shorthand, using combinations of keystrokes to represent the phonetic sounds. Software is used to translate the keystrokes into words using a translation dictionary. The live captioning rate at which the stenocaptioner works, 200-260 words per minute, can contribute to errors. Also, if a word is not present in the translation dictionary, the computer will choose a close match, e.g., "create” translated as “kree ate."
Return to FAQ list

Q. What causes mistakes in captioning?
A. Captioning quality can vary among the many captioning companies. Errors may occur because of technical problems in the transmission and receipt of the captions, or possibly due to human error. Real-time (live) captions are displayed instantly. The captioner cannot proofread or correct them when an error occurs. Prior to a real-time broadcast, the captioner performs research on the broadcast topics and updates the computer dictionary with words that could possibly be spoken during the respective program. This includes but is not limited to names, places, and foreign words. If a captioner does not have a specific word in the computer dictionary, the computer may not recognize the syllables as a word, and might display the individual syllables as separate words. Captioners must also program their captioning dictionary to make the computer distinguish among words that sound the same but are spelled differently (homonyms), such as "Ben" and "been", and "pear", "pare", and "pair". Mistakes can be caused by captioner misstrokes or by the computer mistranslations of the stenographic code. Inaudible speech in the broadcast also may lead to captioning errors. Noise in the telephone line transmitting the captions can cause the captions to be garbled. Also, temperature and humidity variations from an acceptable range cause malfunctions of the captioning equipment. There are many things that can cause errors in captions, ranging from human mistakes to poor phone signals to equipment problems.
Return to FAQ list

Q: Why do the captions not always match the audio?
A: There are several possible reasons for captions that don't match the audio portion of a program: Intentional editing: the captions are edited to a reading level consistent with that of the target audience. Non-verbatim caption sources: Persons who broadcast from a script will sometimes deviate from the script. If the captions were prepared based solely upon the script, the captions will not be verbatim. The delay between the spoken word and captions appearing that occurs with real-time captioning (usually 2-3 seconds) sometimes creates the need for editing when a station is going to a commercial break. Editing will prevent the captions from lagging into the commercial.
Return to FAQ list

Q: Why do strange typos appear in the captions?
A: Real-time captioners, no matter how well trained or how experienced they are, will make errors. Since their caption data is transmitted instantly, there is not an opportunity to "proofread" and correct fingering or hearing errors. A good real-time captioner can work to an accuracy level of better than 99%. Captions with dropped letters usually result from broadcast transmission problems or bad television reception, not captioner error. A common problem is the dropping of a frame of video. This takes out the two characters contained in that frame, so missing letters usually are missing in pairs. These paired errors can come in the form of one letter plus one space, e.g. "on the" translates as "onhe".
Return to FAQ list

Q: What are the white squares that sometimes appear in the captions?
A: Sometimes television reception problems cause these to occur. If the decoder receives something that it interprets as invalid, it translates as a solid white square.
Return to FAQ list

Q: What do I do if my captions are garbled?
A: Sometimes the television reception is not good enough to receive accurate captions. Seek another source of captions (television, decoder, and/or station) to determine if there is something wrong with your system. If your system is operating properly, contact the local or national broadcaster, or cable or satellite company, or program distributor to discuss the problem. If your system is not operating properly you should seek a qualified repair technician.
Return to FAQ list

If you have questions that are not addressed in this page please feel free to send us an e-mail.

Home | Services | About VAC | Contact VAC | Captioning 101 | e-mail
703.280.0041 (voice) | 703.280.0042 (TTY)
© 2009 Visual Audio Captioning, Inc.