iTunes Video Closed Captioning?
My agency has a visitor this week. She’s a freelancer doing production and finish work. She is very awesome, very competent, and very funny. She’s a very good fit for the group. And she’s also very deaf. She speaks through ASL, written notes, and emails. Last year I taught a hearing impaired student, but the college provided a translator at all times and I got lazy and relied on that. Now I’ve pulled out my pocket dictionary of signing and I’m learning my abc’s all over again. But that’s neither here nor there. Let me get to my point.
I buy The Office from iTunes every week. I then hook my iPod to our conference room big-screen TV (it looks pretty good that size, you’d be surprised) and we watch it over lunch-as a big group. So for us to do that today, we’d need to turn on closed captioning on the iPod. Except that Apple doesn’t support closed captioning on the iPod, or iTunes videos in any capacity.
Oh sure, you say, because deaf people probably don’t listen to a lot of iPods. Well sure, I assume they wouldn’t. But with their foray into video, Apple and their partners (ABC, NBC, Disney, etc.) have a pretty solid and obvious responsibility here. It has been proposed by others on the web that a specific feature in iTunes, probably a Preference, could simply be turned on for videos to be watched by people who are hearing impaired and deaf. My iPod asks me everytime I watch a video if I want to send a signal for a TV hookup, so a similar Settings feature could surely be implemented.
I can understand Apple, in the rush and excitement of launching a video revolution, accidentally forgetting that the hard-of-hearing might still want to download LOST. Hey, sometimes I forget to spell-check documents, too. But I always have to go back in and fix the things I’ve overlooked, and it’s time for Apple to do the same.
February 10th, 2006 at 9:48 am
WOW. Thanks for this post. As a hard of hearing designer who has a partner for whom English isn’t his first language, watch TV only with closed captioning.
TV dialogue is very fast and difficult to understand, in any language, for a non-native speaker. Having words on the screen helps with comprehension. Countries like Japan, which don’t have a Closed Captioning system, but who have similar sounding words and different dialects, often underscore the spoken words on TV with bold graphics. But I digress.
I can tell you which companies do and don’t use CC for their commercials. And I always find this to be a slight. I’ve never heard the dialogue on Skittles commercial for instance. And I won’t buy skittles for that reason. (Although, I do at those points tend to notice visual details about commercials, when I get read what they are saying. “Is that an 80s-era Mercedes those people are sitting on?” For instance.)
It’s leaving out a portion of the market. Almost intentionally. And with an aging population it seems like a stupid move. In fact, the smart advertisers already have learned that they can sponsor the CC in various shows. So that at the end of the broadcast you’ll read: Closed Captioning sponsored by Sprint, or Ford or whomever.
February 10th, 2006 at 10:08 am
That’s a great point, Nate. I’m curious why Apple’s neglected this. Or perhaps there’s some way to get that content? It seems really odd that they wouldn’t offer it, since they go to such lengths with their OS. You should contact them and see what they say.
February 10th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Thinking about this now. It probably has more to do with the way they are getting the content. The CC is part of the broadcast signal that is sent out and isn’t part of the actual video. Adding this in again for Video iPod would require either larger video files or less quality from the Codec. But it still seems like this is something that they should be working on.
February 10th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Thinking functionally, how would this work? Is the iPod screen large enough to support readable type as well as the image?
February 10th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
My iPod screen is surprisingly crystal clear. The resolution is fantastic so, yes, I believe it would be possible.
February 10th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
There are rumors that the current video iPod is a stopgap in anticipation of the “real video iPod” w/ a 3.5″ touch sensitive display (fingerprints, anyone?). Maybe that will help motivate them to add this content. Though DC1974 makes a very good point about the CC content.
February 10th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
I, too, would be interested in knowing if it were possible. Isn’t CC the little bits of black and white you sometimes see peeking through above or below the image? I think somebody told me that once. (No, I’m not talking about a snowy picture.)
I just ran into a high school girls basketball team the night before last at Carl’s Jr. that was hard of hearing. I can only imagine they would want to be able to see the words if they’re looking at a video iPod. But then again, would a person hard of hearing even consider paying the price for an IPod? They could show photos and watch videos, but . . .
Somebody please enlighten me…do hard of hearing people like to listen to music? I have friends (and a 2-year old) that know ASL, but they’re not hard of hearing. How enjoyable is it for them? Would it be like going to a drum and bugle core performance, where you basically feel the different notes?
February 10th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Kyle. As someone who is hard of hearing. I love music. It’s actually sometimes easier to “understand” than the spoken word. And I know people that are completely deaf that go to dance clubs. You can still feel the base and therefore the rhythm.
February 13th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Thanks, DC1974.
I just looked it up–the iPod Nanos don’t allow video on the tiny screen. In case anyone was wondering. That would seem too small to even see much of the video–like watching a Broadway musical from the back of the balcony.
March 8th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
I too was looking for ways to CC our video podcasts. We supply content for Museum tours and in most cases Closed Captioning is required.
Typically CCing is done using an xml file that is associated with the video file, this is how you CC a Windows Media file, or a flash video.
I am very surprised to hear that Apple didn’t build this into the player…Strange.
I have seen workarounds. One in particular was a video podcast supplied by NASA. You can find it in itunes. They placed the CC into the actual video, while this isn’t a very efficient way of working. It does allow for the hearing impared to read the CC’s.
June 15th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
I’m glad to see someone besides me has noticed how ridiculous it is not to offer CC on iTunes. I downloaded episodes having no idea that it would not be available. Other vendors claim to offer it, so I don’t think the size is prohibitive for download.
I just want to add that iPod is not the only thing people use iTunes for. I wanted to download the LOST season to watch on my TV–through the video hook-up. Then when I got it up on the screen I suddenly realized–crap, no CC. I can get by without it, but I miss so much that it’s certainly not worth downloading in the future. I’m better off setting the VCR now that Season 2 is repeating. At least I’ll know what everyone’s saying.
June 28th, 2006 at 9:37 am
Thank you for the enlightening comments about CC on ipods. I am Deaf myself and like many others, i like to watch Lost, Smallville, etc. It would be cool for me to catch up with those shows while on my lunch break on a ipod. But guess CC isnt there for us.
It wouldnt just be that.. but for quiet places that requires no noise like library, buses, etc so CC is the logical way to go and stay quiet.
June 28th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Good point if we have it on TV’s why can’t we use it on IPods as well.
August 14th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Since Mac OS 10.5 the Leonard will come out by next year. There is new Quicktime that will support Closed Caption. It hint me that it’s possible new iPod with widescreen would be enough readable on closed caption.
August 14th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Success!
August 28th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
The “new” CC feature in upcoming Leopard is only an improvement. Quicktime has always supported closed caption via form of text track which can be turned on or off to show/hide the caption. Leopard improves this, i guess making ti more visible in system preferences and maybe new tools.
September 17th, 2006 at 1:51 am
I’m hard of hearing, and I like the sound of the guitar.
Music, believe it or not, is intelligible to hard of hearing persons more so than the spoken word, because it is just that — music. A deaf person is tone-aware. Beethoven, and most deaf (or partially so) persons can hear music inside our heads. Especially when inebriated, I can take on fantastical flights when the appropriate music is put on. Sometimes, music is accompanied with amazing light displays in the mind’s eye, again, the level of inebriation does affect the prominence or whether even the effect arises.
Take for instance, the song “Big Log” by Robert Plant. About a third into the song, after the second stanza and chorus, but before the third stanza, a somewhat high note sounds as the music nearly dies out but as it drifts, suddenly the song’s tune (which deaf persons should be able to easily remember once they know it) begins to play again. At that point, in my mind anyway, an arcing light explodes into a myriad of colors. Led Zeppelin / Robert Plant are the MASTERS of INNER LIGHT MANIPULATION.
December 23rd, 2006 at 12:36 pm
If the Ipod does not support closed captions why do I have them on the new superman movie. I am trying to remove the titles and everyone says Ipod doen not support closed captions.
January 28th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
even though i can hear, i google’d this topic out of pure curiosity. sometimes, it’s hard to hear dialog, and CC’d is a defacto way to see what was said. my heart goes out to the community of people who need CC’d content just to consume video. i’m absolutely blown away that Apple’s iTunes / iPod does not support CC. this is an absolute “f*ck you, take your dollars and shove it” to the deaf community.
February 4th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
DC1974… Signal from broadcast? My ass. Closed captions and subtitles are already included in the DVDs and the files (not the video) are super small. Talking about obtaining a movie and they removed texts. What pisses me off is that it is copyrighted, right? Then why mess with the contents?
Everyone else… Downloading a movie is not worth it. You get “near” DVD-quality, you’re better off with DVDs for now.
February 4th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Movies on iPod vs PSP for the Deaf
iPod…
Pro: Huge Storage Disk means several movies
Con: Not Deaf Friendly PERIOD
PSP…
Pro: Movie Subtitle ON/OFF
Con: UMD Movies are Pricey
PSP is a clear winner this time.
February 4th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
What ya expect? iPod and coming soon iPhone. It’s always hearing thing. Well, come on people… let’s demand Apple for deaf version! iVP? ;o)
June 28th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
10 percent of the US population is deaf or hard of hearing and apple is crazy to ignore this group. Just as important, if you include family members of these people, you have a very large number of households.
I am hearing and will not consider purchasing a video ipod or buying itunes videos until they include closed captions – I’ll stick with alternatives like real DVDs.
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:55 am
I am hard of hearing and a huge Apple fan.
However, Apple so far has dropped the ball when it comes to captioning video content on iTunes.
Although I can still enjoy music and use a phone, I need captioning to view television and movies.
I recently started using the iPhone and I love it. I especially love the high resolution screen and could, without a doubt, read captions on it if they were available.
If anyone out there has email addresses where I could write to lobby for this very solvable issue please post to this forum.
Thank you.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:32 am
not only is this a massive oversight for the deaf and hard-of-hearing but there are also those of us who occasionally like to ‘read’ their movies to gain a deeper appreciation for the writing. just my 2c.
September 17th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
There is an option on my iPod Touch (and possibly on the iPhone) to turn on CC. I haven’t bought any videos from iTunes to try it out, though, but it looks like it must do _something_. I was hoping this forum would answer that.
September 20th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Hi I have a podcast that has I’ve put up with closed-captions video and audio for podcast in iTunes.
The latest iTunes supports captions.
Please take a look.
http://www.multimediatest.com/Site/
November 7th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Although CC movies are not yet available from the iTunes store (apparently the producers have to put them in the material they submit), you can get closed captioned material from iTunes in the form of video podcast.
I produced a vidcast that complies with the supported standard and the SD version is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch, so you will get working closed cpations on the device screen. Older videos still have closed-captions but those were done before there was a standard in QuickTime. Anyways, it was the very first closed captioned podcast.
I think it is still the only podcast that supports this feature but hope that more will jump in. For that reason, I made a video that shows one way of adding CC to your videos.
You can get the videos at:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=123401561
Sincerely yours,
Israel Melendez
http://www.tecnocato.com
December 16th, 2007 at 7:44 am
I just thought ya’ll should know, that iTunes does support CC (however it is on certain items, and this is based on the broadcasters and how it is delivered to iTunes) Closed captioning can either be turned on or off, with the simple click of the mouse in the view menu!