Captioning

More Courts Should Provide ‘CART’ Real-Time Video Transcription Services

I was excused from jury duty today after I told the officer at the reception desk that none of their amplification schemes, even the portable listening devices they provide as an accommodation for people with hearing loss, would work for me. I told him I’d be happy to serve if they could provide CART service–communications access real-time transcription–where they wheel a TV monitor into court and provide real-time video captioning of the proceedings. But they still don’t provide that service in the Massachusetts Superior Court House where I was called to serve.

CART systems have been around for many years and have long been recognized by the federal government as a “reasonable accommodation” under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). So it’s disappointing and a little surprising that CART service isn’t yet a standard accommodation for hard-of-hearing people called to jury duty.

Now that it’s been several years since the FCC mandated closed captions on regular TV broadcasts, including live news, and now that nearly all DVD’s from Hollywood come with optional subtitles, I’ve learned how much I’ve been missing when I have to fall back on speech reading and portable amplifiers to supplement my hearing aids. There are many business meetings where I need to struggle along understanding half to three-quarters of what is said. Lucky for me, I have empathetic clients who don’t mind repeating themselves, and my partners take good notes and are patient about filling me in after-the-fact on things I’ve missed. Even then, after a day of struggling to hear, worrying about what I didn’t hear, and working overtime to catch up on what I missed, I am completely exhausted. And I haven’t had to worry about whether I’ve understood the guilt or innocence of someone charged with a crime. So trying to struggle through a day in court without video captioning is a non-starter for me.

The good news is that the court officer was so understanding and so quick to release me. I was ready for a long day of trying to explain why their amplifiers wouldn’t work for me. The courthouse I was called to in Woburn, Massachusetts is brand new and wired to the hilt with all kinds of amplification, plus they provide personal listening amplifiers for people who need them. Unfortunately I’ve had long experience trying to make those devices work, and while they provide an incremental improvement, they don’t provide the kind of comprehensive understanding that CART video transcription provides.

Most likely, I didn’t have to explain myself because they’ve been down this road often enough to understand that, given the fact CART is now a reasonable ADA accommodation, it’s unreasonable not to provide the service. I appreciate how understanding they were and how quick they were to let me go, but at the end of the day my preference would have been to have access to the communication service I need so that I could step up and perform my civic duty.

Congressman Markey Demands Internet-Video Captions For Hard-Of-Hearing Web Surfers

Democratic US Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts is backing a bill that would require major producers of web videos to provide captioning, a piece of legislation that provides many other benefits for people with hearing, vision and other disabilities.

Markey is one of the most senior legislators in Congress and a leader in shaping the nation’s telecommunications policies. When he puts his whole weight behind a piece of communications legislation he usually gets it passed. So my recent cry for more web captions has been answered from on high! Federal legislation might also help motivate more standards for web-video formats, especially captioning, which still requires some work. Another element of the legislation would require that phones used for Internet calls (voice over IP calls) be compatible with hearing aids in the same way regular phone equipment now must work with hearing aids. For more on this landmark legislation, read today’s Boston Globe article. I’ll be tracking this one closely.

More Good News From WGBH NCAM: Easy Captions For Adobe Flash Videos

While I’m going on about WGBH NCAM’s web video captioning success with its industry-wide coalition, I should also mention their recent introduction of a software utility that makes it easy to create captioned Adobe Flash videos. This gives me an excuse to brag: at my consulting company’s site, Aquarius Advisers LLC, we’ve had captioning on our Flash videos for two years now. It wasn’t easy back then, but we had the assistance of a brilliant digital animator, Dave Counts, whose far-left site TooStupidToBePresident.com has won him fame and infamy as one of the most creative digital animators and satirists in the country. He figured out how to put Flash captions on our site then, but WGBH NCAM has made it easy with its new software utility, so mere mortals can make it happen now.

AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! Collaborate On Web Video Captioning

There’s some GREAT news in the captioning world this week from the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) at WGBH, the public broadcasting station in Boston. AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to collaborate with NCAM to establish and manage a new International Captioning Forum to set standards for captioning on any kind of video presented on the Web. This critical mass of industry leaders provides real hope that captioning on the Web will one day be as common as closed-captioning on TV, which is now required in the U.S. by the Federal Communications Commission. It follows other recent positive developments, including Apple making its Quicktime video player caption-friendly, and NBC making a bold decision to invest in captioning for all its prime-time shows that are streamed over the web. It’s yet another breakthrough move by NCAM and WGBH, which have led the way in not only advocating for accessible media in all forms — whether it be captioning on TV or in the movies, or audio description technology for blind moviegoers, or the booming video-on-the Web medium — but also in actually making it happen.

CapTel Captioned Telephone Service Finally Gets A Hearing In Massachusetts

Since I last wrote about CapTel captioned telephone service, a dozen additional states have started offering this vital lifeline for hard-of-hearing consumers. To my chagrin, my home state of Massachusetts now is one of only six states in the union that have not approved it. For a state that prides itself in being among the technology leaders in the U.S., this is a huge embarrassment. I learned last week that my state legislature is finally considering legislation that will enable CapTel service for residents through the public relay service. It turns out the state senator from my district, State Sen. Cynthia Creem, is on the joint committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy that is considering SB#1943, which will enable the service by allowing a relay center based outside the state to process CapTel calls. I emailed Sen. Creem’s office to find out her position and lobby her to push it through to passage. I got an email back telling me that I won’t get my questions answered until either she or a staff member responds to me via the U.S. mail at some point. It’s not reassuring that my state senator prefers snail mail to email, as it makes me wonder how sensitive she will be to the need for a newfangled electronic solution for her hard-of-hearing constituents. Especially when the overall legislature - including the committe she is on - has moved at its own snail’s pace over the past several years.

The email said I could call her office on the phone, but I dislike using the phone because I’m hearing impaired. That’s why I find the CapTel service so exciting. I’ve seen a demonstration, and it has state-of-the-art voice-recognition software which enables human operators in relay centers to provide real-time captioning on an LCD on your phone, with accuracy as good as what you get on the closed captioning on your TV. It will be a boon to people who are unproductive at work because they can’t hear well on the phone. Forty-four other states offer it, so I’m hoping my Massachusetts legislature will finally enable it here. If you’re in Massachusetts, call or write your representative or a member of the commmittee. I’m not holding my breath though, as I first wrote about this issue a year and a half ago.

Let’s Boycott Super Bowl Advertisers Who Don’t Supply Captions

What do BlockBuster, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Expedia.com have in common? Their Super Bowl ads this year didn’t have captions. They must not want our business. Captionless ads have been bothering me ever since I began noticing how many advertisers don’t supply them, even after the first of the year when the FCC began requiring broadcasters to caption all their regular programming. The number of captionless ads on SuperBowl XL was especially disappointing. Now I’ve stumbled across some data to back up my gripe. It turns out that nearly 50 percent of this year’s Super-Bowl XL advertisers didn’t bother to provide captions with their ads, according to the accountability site Captions.Com, which notes: “A 30-second ad during the Super Bowl is 2.5 million dollars ($2,500,000.00). The cost to caption that ad is approximately $200.” So I’ve got a modest proposal. Why don’t we start a public hard-of-hearing-consumer boycott of the brands that don’t bother to offer captions? And let’s start favoring caption providers like Pepsi, FedEx, Sprint and VISA who apparently do want our business.

Because my day job is marketing communications consulting, I make it my business every year to watch the Super Bowl ads even more carefully than the game. But nearly half the ads are still inaccessible to me (hello ADA). Go to Capions.com and take a look at this year’s list. Among auto suppliers adveristing on the Super Bowl this year, Ford captioned its ad for the Escape Hybrid, but Honda, Hummer and GMC simply didn’t bother. Then there were the schizophrenic brands: Toyota captioned its ad for its monster Tacoma, but didn’t bother with its little Camry; Frito Lay Tostitos provided captions, but Frito Lay Potato Chips didn’t; Walt Disney World had three commercials, two with captions, and one without. What gives?

You can guess whose products I’m going to look at first next time I’m in the convenience store, at a fast-food drive-through, or cruising down the Auto Mile. More important, guess whose products I’m NOT going to consider? Let’s give the caption-less brands what they’re asking for — a hard-of-hearing-consumer boycott. Let’s visit the customer feedback sections on all the offenders’ sites to let them know just how offensive they have been. And while we’re at it, let’s also mount an email campaign to both the NFL and CBS petitioning them to require that Super-Bowl XLI advertisers in January 2007 include captions. No, there’s no law I know of (yet) that says advertisers must provide captions. But given the small cost, why on earth don’t they?

I’m Still Waiting For CapTel Captioned Telephone Service In Massachusetts

Last night I finally got some answers to my questions about why CapTel service still isn’t available in my home state of Massachusetts, even after 35 other states have gotten the captioned telephone service up and running. Those who have tried it say that CapTel is simply awesome. As easy to use as the closed captioning on your TV, it’s a breakthrough in communication that truly has life-changing potential for thousands of deaf and hard-of-hearing people throughout the U.S. At the monthly meeting of the Greater Boston Chapter of Self Help for Hard of Hearing People (SHHH), Dennis A. Selznick of Sprint Relay Services gave an overview, and Greater Boston SHHH President Karen Rockow gave a clear update of the progress it is making toward approval in Massachusetts.

CapTel is offered under the same state-run relay services that provide TTY and Voice-Carry-Over (VCO) for written translations of conversations and Video Relay for on-line sign-language interpreters. TTY and VCO services require the user to first engage an operator, who transcribes and transmits what the other party is saying and displays it over a TTY or computer terminal. The user can’t hear what the other person is saying, and there are delays as the operator mediates the conversation. With CapTel, the operator is invisible, and the caller can use whatever hearing he or she has to listen to the other party, using the scrolling captions on the five-line LCD screen of a special CapTel telephone to fill in the gaps, just as they would when watching captioned television. The service is so easy to use that people who in the past would did not bother going through the steps required to learn and to use VCO or TTY services are gravitating to CapTel quickly and easily. But adoption of the service is a state-by-state proposition, and some states, including the one I live in, apparently have had a hard time getting out of their own way. Karen Rockow explained that an outdated Massachusetts state law that originally created the state relay service was written in such a way that it’s technically illegal to offer the CapTel service as it’s currently configured. It will require a change in the law by the state legislature to get CapTel on track. When that legislation will be voted on, and whether it will pass, still are open questions.

According to Rockow, the 1980s-era enabling legislation in Massachusetts included a provision that relay-service call centers be located within the state to provide employment to state residents. However, because CapTel services are currently so small and specialized, there is only one CapTel call center in the U.S. located in Wisconsin. At the relay center, a trained operator patches into the CapTel user’s calls and, using sophisticated voice-recognition software, transcribes and transmits real-time captioning of the speaker on the other end to the five-line LCD display on the user’s special CapTel phone. The states levy taxes or user fees to pay for relay services, which are most often offered free or at nominal cost to deaf and hard-of-hearing consumers under common-carrier laws requiring that state-licensed service providers provide equal access to all consumers. Unfortunately, maintaining relay call centers in every state would multiply costs enormously, and while Selznick said CapTel eventually will have several relay centers around the country, there is no immediate plan to put one in Massachusetts. Therefore the original enabling legislation preventing the deployment of relay services handled through out-of-state call centers will have to be changed. Rockow said there is a bill before the state legislature that will effect just such a change. But Selznick encouraged SHHH meeting attendees to advocate for quick passage of the change, as it’s anyone’s guess whether it will be voted on during the current legislative session, or whether it will have to wait until next year. Readers in Massachusetts: I’ll be posting more information on the CapTel legislation and how to contact your state representatives about moving it forward.

CapTel Phone Captioning Now Available In 32 States

I’m still a CapTel wannabee. With Sprint Nextel’s recent announcement of the addition of CapTel Relay Service in New Hampshire, the real-time telephone captioning service is now available in 32 states. It’s also available to current and retired federal employees including military veterans, as well as to U.S. tribal members. But it’s not available in Massachusetts, where I live. I’m going to get after the state telecommunications regulators to see what’s taking so long. The CapTel service is the next giant step beyond traditional voice carry-over (VCO) relay services. VCO service engages an operator who transcribes the conversation of the hearing person and transmits it to the hard-of-hearing person’s computer or TTY terminal. With the CapTel service, the operator transmits real-time captions directly to a display on your CapTel-ready phone, so you don’t need a second device to read the captions. Plus, when you make an outgoing call, the service is engaged immediately, versus VCO services where you have to place the call through the service provider. And the captioning is done in real-time, just like the captions on TV, by an operator who uses court-reporter transcription technology combined with some voice-recognition software.

You need a special phone, which is designed and sold by Ultratec, a manufacturer of TTY terminals and other devices. If you get a two-line version of the phone, people can call you directly and the operator will automatically engage (the one-line phone still requires incoming calls to be placed through the relay servicer rather than directly). All these benefits eliminate many of the major hurdles that continue to plague hard-of-hearing people who can’t use the phone. The VCO relay services are a godsend for basic communications but still are cumbersome for use in business and other spontaneous conversations where the delay caused by engagement with the operator is impractical. So CapTel will put a lot of currently well-educated, hard-working and intelligent people back to productive work at jobs that require more use of the phone than they can handle with the more limited VCO relay service. Then why doesn’t every state offer CapTel today? One of the reasons may be that the service is currently provided free to people who need it under state telecommunications access regulations, imposing a cost to carriers that they won’t want to bear unless the state lets them cover it with a general rate increase. CapTel is the kind of “if you build it, they will come” service that will generate a lot of new demand, so I imagine the cost considerations are material for both the carrier and the regulators alike. I’ll let you know how my inquiries go in Massachusetts as I try to migrate from CapTel wannabee to CapTel user.