# closed captioning **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 30, 2002, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485 "2002-10-30T03:04:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pud\_lumpkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@pud\_lumpkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pud_lumpkins)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/1 "2002-10-30T03:04:30Z")
are the tv and the courtroom captioning machines the same? and does the tv have a person typing it from the station? and i’ve seen the courtroom machine have the thing where they press 2 buttons at a time. how do those work? ---
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/2 "2002-10-30T05:42:12Z")
I was watching a religious station sometime last year, and along with the usual self-serving propoganda religious stations deal in (We do this, that, AND feed the hungry! Aren’t we good?), they went on how they closed caption everything (very good IMHO). They then showed someone at home with a special hook-up that was typing away to the dialogue. I imagine Google would be an excellent source of info on this, even to purchase a machine if you were so inclined. However, this is only one instance, I’m sure it varies amongst every broadcaster somewhat. ---
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/3 "2002-10-30T05:49:07Z")
BTW, I THINK it was a standard keyboard; not sure, could be wrong. Also, being somewhat wealthy timewise tonight, I thought I’d find you some links. [http://www.linkelectronics.com/htm/techcc.htm](http://www.linkelectronics.com/htm/techcc.htm) [http://www.subtitler.com/e\_lc2000/index01.html](http://www.subtitler.com/e_lc2000/index01.html) ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/4 "2002-10-30T15:49:06Z")
Live captioning in court is easier with a Steno keyboard, yes. There are types of software they can use to convert it. What you also might be looking for is called CART, which can use a computer keyboard. I think that is ‘computer aided real time captioning’. Sometimes you watch a tv program with captions & you see on the screen ‘no carrier’, this means they are captioning by phone. Person listens on a phone, types captions which are sent through the phone to the tv place & appear onscreen ( At least that’s the idea , I think ) ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/5 "2002-10-30T17:39:18Z")
A friend of my family does this. She was trained as a court stenographer, but for the last few years has been doing closed captioning for various TV shows (including one of the evening talk shows; Letterman, I think). I’m not sure if she is employed by the producers of the shows or the network, or how that works. What I _do_ know is that she works from home, in Arizona, and watches the show as it is being broadcast. She types everthing that is said into her computer, from where it is fed back to the network (via phone lines) and over the air. She lives in constant fear of breaking news stories from difficult to spell places in the Balkans or Afghanistan, although she has committed the spelling of most of these people and places to memory. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2002, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/6 "2002-10-30T18:40:54Z")
At a recent candidate debate here in Missouri, the captioning was done by voice-recognition software. Since that system relies on translating sounds into words, it is less than perfect. Several of the reporters covering the debate enjoyed the lines in the transcript that read “Evil have two minutes for an opening statement.” ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2002, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/7 "2002-10-31T01:01:07Z")
Yeah, captioning typos are really funny… plus the occasional profanity that gets through. ---
**Author:** ![plain\_jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@plain\_jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plain_jane)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2002, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/8 "2002-10-31T06:24:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pud\_lumpkins \* > \*\*are the tv and the courtroom captioning machines the same?.. i’ve seen the courtroom machine have the thing where they press 2 buttons at a time. how do those work? \*\* I used to do offline closed captioning. (We captioned the shows before they went to air, not “real time”.) We used a regular computer and keyboard. Offline captioning can be done either way–regular keyboard or with a stenograph machine. Now, the “courtroom machine” is really neat. This is the layout of the stenograph keypad: (1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9) S T P H \* F P L T D S K W R R B G S Z AOEU (50) It’s accurate but not very pretty. Forgive me. 🙂 With a stenograph machine, we write from left to right, and different letter combinations mean different things. The keys are stroked simutaneously, not individually like on a traditional keyboard. Also there are a lot of briefs and outlines. (Like short hand.) For example, the sentence “start the car” would look like this: S T A R T T K A R Check it against the chart I wrote out above. Something like “state your name” has a shortform: S T URPB ST represents “state” UR represents “your” and PB make an N which represents “name”. I could go on and on… I find it utterly fascinating. A page on captioning: [http://www.robson.org/capfaq/overview.html](http://www.robson.org/capfaq/overview.html) And a page on court reporting: [http://www.verbatimreporters.com/](http://www.verbatimreporters.com/) ---
**Author:** ![plain\_jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@plain\_jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plain_jane)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2002, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/9 "2002-10-31T06:27:10Z")
Ack, the stenograph keyboard layout got messed up somehow after it was posted… Let me get this right yet, or die trying: S T P H \* F P L T D S K W R \* R B G S Z AO EU ---
**Author:** ![plain\_jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@plain\_jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plain_jane)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2002, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/closed-captioning/134485/10 "2002-10-31T06:28:34Z")
Nevermind. I died trying.