Media Notices Captions Lacking Online

These articles from MSNBC point out the lack of captions or transcripts on online videos. It’s a fast-growing frustration especially with video in iPods, PDAs, and another portable players. I can’t download TV shows and enjoy them like most of the public.

The Red Tape Chronicles

Subtitles: Deaf to the Problem

iPod screens too small for captions? Please. I’ve used a PDA since 1995 and have had no problem reading the smaller text that appeared in many apps when I reviewed PDA software.

I’ve just completed judging of many high quality Web sites and the number of sites that bothered having captions or a script was less than the fingers on one hand. Most of these sites had video, audio, or both.

I didn’t know about Harkle.com. It searches for captioned media. I came across AOL’s Video Search tool and for the heck of it, entered “close-captioned.” The results were pitiful listing about four pages worth of documentaries.

I like documentaries as I regularly watch Food Network and caught an interesting program on The History Channel last night. But these weren’t up my alley. I don’t think too many people are interested in “Managing Rodents and Mosquitoes through Integrated Pest Management.” The video is from 2003 and is targeted to those in the pest control industry.

As Web designers, you can help make a difference by making things easier for your users. The article references several resources for captioning videos:

“Several software packages have also been designed to include captions in the leading video players, including Microsoft’s Media Player (Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange), RealNetworks’ RealPlayer (RealText) and Apple’s QuickTime (Text Track). (Microsoft is a partner with NBC Universal in MSNBC.com).”

Interesting that Apple is mentioned considering iPods aren’t set up to do captions. Thanks to MSNBC for noticing the problem. Captions aren’t just for those with hearing problems, you know?

Related articles:

iPod Captioning… Not!
Read Captions Across America
Rear Window Movies

Meryl K. Evans, who rarely discusses politics, is helping with a person’s school board campaign in Plano. When not persuading people to vote for Missy Bender, she is busy as the Content Maven behind meryl.net and helps companies get better results through simple words that make a big impact. You can visit her blog or drop her a line.

[tags]video,audio,captions,closed-captions,captioning,scripts,transcripts[/tags]