Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Yep, it's a Rant all right

Closed Captioning - Not Just For The Hearing Impaired

I don't know about anyone else, but I often have closed captioning on-screen, and when watching a DVD, I enjoy having the subtitles enabled.

The sad thing is how poor many captions/subtitles are. RIFE with typo's, things that could be caught with an automated spell checker. There's NO excuse. Also, captions are especially bad for live tv, such as news. Horrible. Suggestion to the media - hire a stenographer to type your captions! I think that someone who can capture every nuance of courtroom dialogue should be able to accurately type in captions.

Also, very often these days, DVD don't have subtitles of any kind! What the hell is that all about? Is it really that expensive? Hire me, I will do it for you on the cheap. Hell, depending on the movie, I'd do it for free!

And another thing. Caption typists, please watch the movie. It's pretty obvious that the captionist is just cutting and pasting from the script. Very often, the lines spoken and the subtitles do not match. Step 1, Paste from Script. Step 2, Watch and Listen to movie, making any and all corrections needed.

And another thing. Am I the only one who has noticed the Special Features dwindling on DVDs lately? When DVDs first hit the market, they were fulla features, trying to entice people to buy an $800 DVD Player. Now, nothing. No subtitles, no extras, no love.

At least plug in the 'HBO First Look' or some Entertainment Tonight interviews with the cast or something.

I don't need a daily journal of the production, noting every minute detail, just something. Jeez.

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