# Live "Closed-Captioning"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 23, 2003, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386 "2003-01-23T05:02:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/1 "2003-01-23T05:02:58Z")
How do they get live closed-captioning, for example, the sports announcer from a football game? Is there some super-duper court stenographer working for the Wild World of Sports? 😉 - Jinx 😕 ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/2 "2003-01-23T05:03:46Z")
Yep. Really fast typists. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/3 "2003-01-23T05:14:24Z")
Hmm… Is that really true? Maybe what we have here is a new trial Olympic sport? Synchrnized speed typing (with a difficulty level of 4)! 😃 - Jinx ---
**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:** [January 23, 2003, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/4 "2003-01-23T05:29:25Z")
There was an earlier thread about this, relating varied experiences: I said in it that I saw a lady on TV (they were showing a piece on this very topic) with a standard QWERTY keyboard, and others gave examples of a stenographers’ typewriter being used. ---
**Author:** ![KoalaBear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47c2d/32.png) [@KoalaBear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KoalaBear)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/5 "2003-01-23T06:16:49Z")
Interesting you should ask: I’ve been reading up on that lately. Apparently, live closed captioning is done by a court reporter or similar professional trained to use a shorthand keyboard. See the [**Closed Captioning FAQ**](http://www.robson.org/capfaq/index.html) for details. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/6 "2003-01-23T06:30:39Z")
I’ve always speculated on the translation system used to convert from steno to English. Very informative, KoalaBear. [http://www.robson.org/gary/captioning/spelerz.html](http://www.robson.org/gary/captioning/spelerz.html) was particuarly interesting, and confirmed my suspicions forged after years of watching TV muted in the background. I, for one, will rest easier at night. _salute_ ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/7 "2003-01-23T14:08:38Z")
In many cases TV announcers are actually working with a script of some kind-- and TV stations send the script to the closed captioner at the same time as it goes up on Teleprompter. The announcer can always change what he says, so if it doesn’t match, now you know why. ---
**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:** [January 23, 2003, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/8 "2003-01-23T15:57:46Z")
I shared this in the other thread – I had a neighbor who had been a court stenographer and later was hired by one of the networks to do closed captioning. She did one of the late night talk shows, and maybe some others. Her captioning was done real-time (as the show was being broadcast) and she lived in constant fear of sudden Breaking News with difficult-to-spell names and places. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/9 "2003-01-23T16:47:12Z")
Yep. Plus many just caption over the phone, so when that disconnects, you sometimes see captions that say NO CARRIER… You also get an eyeful of interesting captions (‘eye deal’ for ‘idea’) & sometimes profanities get through. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/10 "2003-01-23T16:48:36Z")
that should be ‘ideal’ not ‘idea’ of course, looks like I did a steno’s typo 🙂 ---
**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:** [January 23, 2003, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-closed-captioning/150386/11 "2003-01-23T19:11:01Z")
During the 2002 Senate debate here in Missouri, the moderator specifically mentioned that the captioning was being done by voice recognition software. It was making some amusing errors.