Triveni Digital Trained Series – CC Best Practices with StreamScope
®
SCTE San Diego Chapter -Closed
Captioning Rules, Regulations and
Implementations Overview
Caveat
The following charts contain an interpretation of
current pertinent regulations that are subject to change
and should not be considered as legal advice in any
manner….
Page 2
Agenda
Summary
Report & Order
Best Practices
CC support on the MT-50
CC implementation on the RM-40
Page 3
Summary
Closed Captioning Quality Order
Issue February 2014
Report & Order for February 2015 rules
Future areas (FNPRM) Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
Closed Captioning compliance became law in March 2015
Declaratory Ruling – Clarification of current captioning rules
R&O – future Feb 2015 rules
FNPRM – potential future requirements
Final rules in Appendix B
Very similar to loudness / CALM act
Consumer driven rather than audit driven
CC ruling covers Spanish and English programs
LPTV Stations are NOT exempt
Page 4
Report & Order (March 2015 Rules)
Accuracy
Captioning should match dialog, sound, music and speakers
Synchronicity
Time and speed of captioning should synchronize with audio
Completeness
Captioning should be present for the full duration of each
program
Placement
CC can not be over faces, key graphics or onscreen text
Page 5
Report & Order – Possible fines
Flagrant Violations = $8,000 per hour
“Flagrant” is, of course, highly subjective and hard to
define. Consumer complaints will likely be the driving
metric.
Best Bet: Follow Best Practices to avoid fines
FCC 14-12 R&O: Section IV A 5.a & 5.b, paragraphs 51-65, pp.
34-43
Page 6
Report & Order – Possible fines
Page 7
Closed Captioning - Best Practices
CC Best Practices Overview
Video Programmer Best Practice
Agreements with captioning service providers
Operational best practices
Monitoring and remedial
Certification procedures
Monitor streams at origination (e.g. master control) to determine
Presence
Recording of captioning issues
Beginning 1 year after effective date - log for up to 12 months
Spot check might be required 30 days after complaint
Captioning Vendor Best Practices
Real-time (Live) Captioning Vendors
Real-time (Live) Captioners
Offline (pre-recorded) Captioning Vendors and Captioners
Page 9
Captioning Vendor Best Practices
Real-Time (Live) Captioning
Accuracy
Percentage of correct words out of total words in program
Commission did not adopt accuracy metrics
Synchronicity
Lag between spoken word and when captions are received
Completeness
CC shall run from beginning to end
Consider mistranslated, incorrect, misspelled, missing
words and punctuation
Placement
Avoid obscuring on-screen information and graphics
Page 10
Captioning Vendor Best Practices
Offline (pre-recorded) Captioning
Essentially same recommendations as live content
Verbatim and error-free
Page 11
MVPD - Best Practices
Analysis & Monitor for CC presence and accuracy
Analyze/ Monitor for Metadata correctness for CC services
Analyze/ Monitor for Captioning stream presence and loss
Page 12
Selected Exemptions
Interstitials, promotional announcements and PSAs that
are 10 minutes or less
Advertising of less than five minutes in duration
Late night programming that is distributed between 2
AM and 6 AM local time
Programming that consists primarily of non-vocal music
Page 13
StreamScope
®
MT-50 CC Support
The following slide illustrations of test and analysis equipment featuring CC specific dialog is for the
purpose of educational examples and end user options in support of this SCTE technical session topic.
StreamScope MT-50 Overview and CC features
Supports 608, 708-D and SCTE 20/21 in MPEG2 and AVC (H.264)
Linear Video Services (MPEG2 Transport)
Closed Caption Recording
Closed Captioning Rendering Text and Overlay on Video
Closed Captioning text file extraction from file
Page 15
StreamScope MT-50 Overview and CC features
Page 16
Captioning Format Display
Captioning Decoder
ATSC608/708, SCTE20/21
Captioning Recording
StreamScope MT-50 Overview and CC features
Page 17
Thumbnails MPEG2/4,
H.264, AVC
Video & Audio
rendering
Captioning Display
5.1 Audio Level’s
StreamScope
®
RM-40 CC Support
StreamScope RM-40 Overview and CC features
Supports 608, 708-E, SCTE 20 and SCTE 21 in MPEG2 and AVC (H.264)
Linear Video Services (MPEG2 Transport)
Closed Caption Recording
Multiple Simultaneous Services
Export Capabilities
Encoding Validation
Identify possible problems w/ up-stream systems
Closed Captioning Existence
Captioning detection
Rules notification based on service absence over a given period
Gating
It will be possible to gate closed caption validation based on specific time
windows within a given hour.
Page 19
StreamScope RM-40 CC features
High Resolution Reports
Generate a captioning report with thumbnails and timed captioned text.
Captions and thumbnails are synchronized to a 1 second resolution.
Captioning Announcement Validation
Detect closed caption descriptors.
Report if closed captioning is not announced for any detected caption
service.
Report any discrepancies between caption announcement with actual
caption services.
Closed Captioning Validation
The ultimate intent is to validate that human-understandable captioning is being
delivered on the existing and/or announced services. The difficulty, of course, is to
determine “human-understandability” in measurable terms. Grammar and spelling
checks are prohibitively expensive on a large number of services.
Closed captioning is considered to be valid if human-readable characters
are present over time.
Page 20
StreamScope RM-40 CC Dashboard
Triveni Digital Proprietary and Confidential, All Rights Reserved
Page 16
Closed Captioning Indicator per Service
ATSC 708
ATSC 608
w/ Errors
StreamScope RM-40 CC Report with Thumbnails
Page 22
Triveni Digital Proprietary and Confidential, All Rights Reserved
