1 00:00:02,620 --> 00:00:04,960 [DTMF signals from the beginning of a Disney VHS tape] 2 00:00:04,960 --> 00:00:06,140 [if you remember those, you’re my kind of awesome] 3 00:00:06,140 --> 00:00:10,860 As you’ve gone through life as a high quality video connoisseur, you’ve no doubt seen 4 00:00:10,870 --> 00:00:14,590 the little toggle for turning captions, or subtitling, on and off. 5 00:00:14,590 --> 00:00:16,350 Here on YouTube, it’s right there. 6 00:00:16,350 --> 00:00:17,350 Or there. 7 00:00:17,350 --> 00:00:19,430 Depends on how you're using it. 8 00:00:19,430 --> 00:00:23,620 By hitting that button, your device will start displaying the text metadata embedded in the 9 00:00:23,620 --> 00:00:29,080 video stream that either YouTube has auto-generated, or that super awesome content creators like 10 00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:33,180 myself have put in so that you don’t have to simply watch a stream of unpunctuated words 11 00:00:33,180 --> 00:00:37,660 flow by like the world's largest run on sentence that never ends and which often contains incorrect 12 00:00:37,660 --> 00:00:40,560 words because the captoning system isn’t quite perfect and that 13 00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:42,400 while useful as a tool could really use… (jokes sometimes end up here, too!) 14 00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:46,960 But did you know that even the lowly VHS cassette often contains captions? 15 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:51,820 And that a VCR as old as this dinosaur can make them work? 16 00:00:51,830 --> 00:00:56,260 That last statement is perhaps a bit disingenuous, but you’ll see what I mean shortly. 17 00:00:56,260 --> 00:01:00,440 Many VHS cassettes will have a little “CC” mark, or sometimes this mark. 18 00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:04,140 This tells you that the video was encoded with closed captioning. 19 00:01:04,140 --> 00:01:05,940 But, how? 20 00:01:05,940 --> 00:01:08,460 First, let’s go over a bit of terminology. 21 00:01:08,470 --> 00:01:13,240 The reason why these are called “closed captions” is that they are not normally visible. 22 00:01:13,240 --> 00:01:17,530 While this terminology is a little antiquated at this point, “captions” implies that 23 00:01:17,530 --> 00:01:21,840 there is actual text baked onto the video, for everyone to see. 24 00:01:21,840 --> 00:01:26,300 Sometimes these are called open captions, though that’s likely a retronym. 25 00:01:26,300 --> 00:01:28,060 The trouble with these sorts of captions 26 00:01:34,740 --> 00:01:35,660 [sound of glass breaking]. 27 00:01:36,260 --> 00:01:41,480 So, closed captioning hides the captions until and unless they are requested by the viewer. 28 00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:46,080 Believe it or not, the first television program in the US to be captioned at all was 29 00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:50,139 "The French Chef”, broadcast on PBS in 1971. 30 00:01:50,139 --> 00:01:54,591 Those were open captions, but nonetheless that was the first time that a US television 31 00:01:54,591 --> 00:01:57,270 program was accessible to the deaf. 32 00:01:57,270 --> 00:02:01,609 This is really surprising to me, because you’d think that one of the great benefits of television 33 00:02:01,609 --> 00:02:06,459 over radio was that non-hearing people could get some benefits from it, and yet it took 34 00:02:06,460 --> 00:02:11,860 until 1971 for anyone to take advantage of the visual component for this purpose. 35 00:02:11,860 --> 00:02:13,840 My how we take our senses for granted. 36 00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:17,810 Anyway, according to the National Captioning Institute, the idea that what would become 37 00:02:17,810 --> 00:02:22,450 closed captioning in the US started with an experiment by the Nationals Bureau of Standards 38 00:02:22,450 --> 00:02:24,260 and ABC television. 39 00:02:24,260 --> 00:02:29,450 They were attempting to broadcast the precise time using non-visible parts of the television 40 00:02:29,450 --> 00:02:30,450 signal. 41 00:02:30,450 --> 00:02:34,750 That idea never came to fruition, but it did lead to the idea of encoding text for the 42 00:02:34,750 --> 00:02:37,020 purpose of closed captioning. 43 00:02:37,020 --> 00:02:41,720 In the early 1970’s, more testing was done on various stations around the country, and 44 00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:48,240 in 1976 the FCC officially decided that Line 21 would be reserved for closed captioning. 45 00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:52,880 Eh, to explain what the means we need to go a little more low tech. 46 00:02:53,640 --> 00:02:54,700 Woah. 47 00:02:54,740 --> 00:02:56,260 Suddenly I fell kind of… 48 00:02:56,960 --> 00:02:58,200 interlaced. 49 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:00,740 Great. 50 00:03:00,980 --> 00:03:01,840 This again. 51 00:03:02,580 --> 00:03:04,140 Well, at least I can say, 52 00:03:04,140 --> 00:03:06,140 “Look ma! I’m on TV!” 53 00:03:06,150 --> 00:03:10,620 An old-fashioned CRT television like this one is a pretty dumb device. 54 00:03:10,620 --> 00:03:14,850 There are no logic circuits in here, just a bunch of frequency oscillators, deflection 55 00:03:14,850 --> 00:03:17,210 coils, and other analog goodies. 56 00:03:17,210 --> 00:03:21,620 All around the part of the picture that you can see are blank sections that are used as 57 00:03:21,620 --> 00:03:22,620 triggers. 58 00:03:22,620 --> 00:03:26,700 I’ve made an earlier series on analog television that you can find if you’d like more information, 59 00:03:26,700 --> 00:03:31,100 but simply put, the image on the screen is made of one continuous line which is broken 60 00:03:31,100 --> 00:03:34,650 up and stacked 525 times per second. 61 00:03:34,650 --> 00:03:38,060 Other countries and continents used different standards, but we’re talking about the 62 00:03:38,060 --> 00:03:41,980 Freedom Captioning System here so we’re sticking with good ‘ol NTSC. 63 00:03:41,990 --> 00:03:46,430 The TV knows when to break the line up because throughout the television signal, low-intensity 64 00:03:46,430 --> 00:03:51,340 pulses (called the horizontal blanking interval) cause it to reset the drawing process, pulling 65 00:03:51,340 --> 00:03:54,480 the line back to the beginning, and starting from there. 66 00:03:54,480 --> 00:04:00,000 But the TV also needs to know when to start the next stack of 525, so another trigger, 67 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:02,480 the vertical blanking interval, is used. 68 00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:06,720 This trigger is simply a group of lines that have no information in them at all. 69 00:04:06,720 --> 00:04:11,030 To keep you from seeing these triggers, the picture tube is overscanned so they appear 70 00:04:11,030 --> 00:04:13,630 outside the borders of the screen. 71 00:04:13,630 --> 00:04:19,540 Closed captioning simply uses one of the unused and unseen lines to digitally encode text. 72 00:04:19,540 --> 00:04:25,199 This worked because a TV doesn’t need that many blank lines to reset the vertical deflection--in 73 00:04:25,199 --> 00:04:27,130 reality it just needs a few. 74 00:04:27,130 --> 00:04:30,319 So sacrificing one of them wouldn’t hurt compatibility. 75 00:04:30,319 --> 00:04:34,930 The first demonstrations of this experimental system occured in 1972, and in the following 76 00:04:34,930 --> 00:04:40,650 year Washington DC’s public television station WETA started doing test broadcasts with the 77 00:04:40,650 --> 00:04:42,849 data transmitted on line 21. 78 00:04:42,849 --> 00:04:49,850 In 1976 the FCC decided to standardize that, and from then on Line 21 was reserved exclusively 79 00:04:49,850 --> 00:04:52,259 for closed captioning information. 80 00:04:52,259 --> 00:04:56,190 Developments to the captioning technology continued to be made throughout the 1970’s 81 00:04:56,190 --> 00:04:57,919 and early 1980’s. 82 00:04:57,919 --> 00:05:03,070 Much of the work was done by engineers at PBS, specifically at WGBH in Boston, with 83 00:05:03,070 --> 00:05:07,349 an important development being the editing consoles used for inserting closed captioning 84 00:05:07,349 --> 00:05:09,700 data into pre-recorded material. 85 00:05:09,700 --> 00:05:14,259 By the end of the 1970’s, closed-captioning advocates decided that they should form a 86 00:05:14,259 --> 00:05:18,520 nonprofit group, with the goal of creating the standards for the system and encouraging 87 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:20,819 larger broadcasters to get onboard. 88 00:05:20,819 --> 00:05:26,789 So, the National Captioning Institute was formed in 1979, and in 1980 the first television 89 00:05:26,789 --> 00:05:31,360 series to be fully closed captioned was broadcast, and this also appears to be the year that 90 00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:35,509 the first closed captioned home video releases made it onto the market. 91 00:05:35,509 --> 00:05:38,979 This symbol here is actually a service mark of the National Captioning Institute. 92 00:05:38,979 --> 00:05:43,479 I always thought it was just a generic mark indicating closed captioning, but apparently 93 00:05:43,479 --> 00:05:48,090 it meant that the NCI is who actually created the captions for the program. 94 00:05:48,090 --> 00:05:49,629 So that’s pretty neat. 95 00:05:49,629 --> 00:05:54,699 This mark, designed by Jack Foley of WGBH, was placed in the public domain and thus became 96 00:05:54,699 --> 00:05:56,360 fairly standard as well. 97 00:05:56,360 --> 00:06:00,779 Now that we know a bit more about its history, let’s take a closer look at how it works. 98 00:06:01,680 --> 00:06:03,520 But first, I gotta get out of this thing. 99 00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:04,620 There’s no place like 4K! 100 00:06:04,700 --> 00:06:05,760 There’s no place like 4K! 101 00:06:05,860 --> 00:06:07,460 There’s no place like 4K! 102 00:06:09,100 --> 00:06:13,439 If I mess with the vertical synchronization of this television, the image will roll and 103 00:06:13,439 --> 00:06:15,849 the vertical blanking interval can be seen. 104 00:06:15,849 --> 00:06:20,509 On this line, which happens to be line 21, you’ll see that occasionally, it bursts 105 00:06:20,509 --> 00:06:23,150 into a black and white scramble of dots. 106 00:06:23,150 --> 00:06:25,009 This is where the closed captioning is. 107 00:06:25,009 --> 00:06:28,939 We’re seeing this visually, as after all the picture tube is still gonna react to it 108 00:06:28,939 --> 00:06:31,120 as if it were visual information. 109 00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:36,380 But don’t think that it’s being read literally like a barcode--though it looks like one, 110 00:06:36,380 --> 00:06:40,760 what this really is is a tiny portion of the signal going high-low-high-low. 111 00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:43,460 In other words, it’s a digital datastream. 112 00:06:43,460 --> 00:06:46,680 But how do we read that and turn it into captions? 113 00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:47,680 Great question! 114 00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:49,840 We need a CLOSED CAPTIONING DECODER! 115 00:06:49,840 --> 00:06:53,479 Luckily I have one right here. 116 00:06:53,479 --> 00:06:58,479 This is the National Captioning Institute’s very own TeleCaption 3000. 117 00:06:58,479 --> 00:07:02,000 Glad they used 3000 because it still sounds futuristic! 118 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:05,330 These were actually built by Sanyo, and they weren’t cheap. 119 00:07:05,330 --> 00:07:09,189 Costing around $200, they cost more than some basic televisions. 120 00:07:09,189 --> 00:07:12,729 There’s a great article from the Chicago Tribune written at the time of this unit’s 121 00:07:12,729 --> 00:07:16,369 introduction which has lots of cool info, and you can check it out in the description 122 00:07:16,369 --> 00:07:18,259 if you’d like to learn more. 123 00:07:18,259 --> 00:07:22,310 Although they were expensive, they did at least include some nice features, as we’ll 124 00:07:22,310 --> 00:07:23,310 see shortly. 125 00:07:23,310 --> 00:07:28,020 This device is able to read the data from line 21, and generate text on-screen. 126 00:07:28,020 --> 00:07:32,629 Remember, that data looks like a bar-code, but it’s processing that as a datastream 127 00:07:32,629 --> 00:07:33,620 because… 128 00:07:34,840 --> 00:07:39,400 OK now that I think about it… all barcodes kind of work that way, at least with the laser-type 129 00:07:39,400 --> 00:07:41,980 scanner thing with the spinning mirror--but, anyway! 130 00:07:41,980 --> 00:07:42,860 It’s reading that data. 131 00:07:42,860 --> 00:07:43,540 Alright. 132 00:07:43,540 --> 00:07:48,940 That data encodes text and timing information, and after determining what it has to do, the 133 00:07:48,949 --> 00:07:53,610 device draws blocks of text on top of the screen, providing a black background to ensure 134 00:07:53,610 --> 00:07:54,680 it’s visible. 135 00:07:54,680 --> 00:07:58,979 Now, this may seem pretty simple, but this device actually has a pretty sophisticated 136 00:07:58,979 --> 00:08:00,029 job to do. 137 00:08:00,029 --> 00:08:04,309 See, it can only only look at one channel at a time, so it needs to have its own television 138 00:08:04,309 --> 00:08:05,820 tuner built-in. 139 00:08:05,820 --> 00:08:10,620 Then, it has to spit out the same picture to the TV, while altering it to contain the 140 00:08:10,620 --> 00:08:11,560 captioning. 141 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:15,619 And it has to do that in real time with technology of the 1970’s. 142 00:08:15,619 --> 00:08:19,939 Of course, this device isn’t nearly that old--it was made in 1989 and by that time 143 00:08:19,939 --> 00:08:26,189 the electronics weren’t so crazy-advanced--but the way the NCI designed this device is awesome. 144 00:08:26,189 --> 00:08:29,539 Take a look on the back and you’ll find a coaxial input from the antenna, and another 145 00:08:29,539 --> 00:08:31,159 output to go to the TV. 146 00:08:31,159 --> 00:08:35,860 You’ve got your standard channel 3 or 4 selector (used in case your local market had 147 00:08:35,860 --> 00:08:40,620 a station broadcasting on either one of those channels), but what’s really clever is this 148 00:08:40,620 --> 00:08:42,820 switched outlet on the back. 149 00:08:42,820 --> 00:08:46,590 Since they had to integrate a television tuner and it would be outputting the altered signal 150 00:08:46,590 --> 00:08:52,600 as if it were, say, a VCR, they designed it to give it a little bit of extra functionality. 151 00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:57,560 If you plug your TV into the outlet on the back, then you can use the TeleCaption 3000 152 00:08:57,560 --> 00:08:59,270 to give it a remote control! 153 00:08:59,270 --> 00:09:04,510 See, the TeleCaption has its own remote, and when you turn it off, it kills the power to 154 00:09:04,510 --> 00:09:05,510 that outlet. 155 00:09:05,510 --> 00:09:10,230 So, if you leave your TV turned on, then you could simply turn your TeleCaption on and 156 00:09:10,230 --> 00:09:13,180 your TV would automatically come to life. 157 00:09:13,180 --> 00:09:18,100 Better still, they added a volume control, so if you left your TV on, set to channel 158 00:09:18,100 --> 00:09:23,250 3, and with the volume on high, you could control everything--the channel, the volume, 159 00:09:23,250 --> 00:09:27,510 the TV’s power, and of course the captions--with this remote. 160 00:09:27,510 --> 00:09:33,050 I really appreciate this thinking on the part of NCI, as even really old televisions with 161 00:09:33,050 --> 00:09:37,360 rotary knobs could now be operated completely via remote control. 162 00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:39,470 Nice going, NCI! 163 00:09:39,470 --> 00:09:43,430 One slightly strange thing about this device is the inclusion of adjustments for the background 164 00:09:43,430 --> 00:09:45,020 as well as the text. 165 00:09:45,020 --> 00:09:48,230 I wasn’t really sure what to expect from these, but apparently they allow you to make 166 00:09:48,230 --> 00:09:51,840 the background lighter and the text darker. 167 00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:55,700 I’m not really sure why you’d want to do this, but I suppose a grey background is 168 00:09:55,700 --> 00:09:57,570 a little less intrusive. 169 00:09:57,570 --> 00:10:01,970 And maybe some old sets would be affected by the black box and skew the image geometry 170 00:10:01,970 --> 00:10:03,110 a bit. 171 00:10:03,110 --> 00:10:05,240 No matter the reason, options are welcome. 172 00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:08,640 Buying one of these decoders wasn’t your only option, however. 173 00:10:08,640 --> 00:10:13,910 Some high-end VCRs were available with built-in closed captioning decoder circuitry, but apparently 174 00:10:13,910 --> 00:10:17,320 this wasn’t well promoted and they never sold well. 175 00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:22,220 In any case, this machine will work with a standard VCR, and given that it creates a 176 00:10:22,220 --> 00:10:27,240 value-add in the form of a television upgrade, I think it was among the best options. 177 00:10:27,240 --> 00:10:29,780 So let’s look a bit more at the captions themselves. 178 00:10:29,780 --> 00:10:33,870 One of the great things about the closed captioning protocol is that the text doesn’t just get 179 00:10:33,870 --> 00:10:36,080 plastered anywhere on the screen. 180 00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:38,270 Its location could be defined. 181 00:10:38,270 --> 00:10:42,060 This meant that the text could shift left and right to give an indication of which character 182 00:10:42,060 --> 00:10:43,240 is talking. 183 00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:44,700 Which is pretty handy. 184 00:10:44,700 --> 00:10:47,960 And the text could even be placed up high so that it wouldn’t obscure 185 00:10:47,960 --> 00:10:50,270 other visual information on screen. 186 00:10:50,270 --> 00:10:54,000 It’s pretty impressive that this encoding was thought out for a captioning system with 187 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:58,910 roots in the 1970’s, and it’s also frustrating that YouTube captions don’t allow you to 188 00:10:58,910 --> 00:10:59,910 do this. 189 00:10:59,910 --> 00:11:01,240 That’s right YouTube, 190 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:06,900 this old VCR and this box are more sophisticated than your captioning system. 191 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:08,820 Maybe work on that. 192 00:11:08,820 --> 00:11:12,840 Now, this may look like it’s limited to all-caps, but in fact the captions do support 193 00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:14,180 mixed-case. 194 00:11:14,180 --> 00:11:17,720 It just tended to be used for descriptions rather than dialogue. 195 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:22,850 Not sure why, and there are exceptions to that rule, but the default seems to be all-caps. 196 00:11:22,850 --> 00:11:27,340 Of course with today’s context, it seems like everyone is shouting. 197 00:11:27,340 --> 00:11:31,010 One of the more surprising aspects of this system was how robust it was. 198 00:11:31,010 --> 00:11:36,170 This is a pretty old VHS cassette with a recording made from live TV, done with not the greatest 199 00:11:36,170 --> 00:11:40,700 incoming reception, and recorded on the low-quality SLP speed. 200 00:11:40,700 --> 00:11:44,490 The captions still come through fine, and with few errors. 201 00:11:44,490 --> 00:11:48,490 Even in areas far from the transmitters, the closed captioning system would still work 202 00:11:48,490 --> 00:11:49,490 reliably. 203 00:11:49,490 --> 00:11:52,930 Of course, for many years, the likelihood that a program would actually contain captioning 204 00:11:52,930 --> 00:11:54,800 would be pretty slim. 205 00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:59,110 It took a lot of effort from the NCI and other organizations to persuade broadcasters to 206 00:11:59,110 --> 00:12:00,590 start using it. 207 00:12:00,590 --> 00:12:03,230 But over time, it began to spread. 208 00:12:03,230 --> 00:12:05,410 Every home video format began to support it. 209 00:12:05,410 --> 00:12:10,400 You can even find CEDs with closed captioning, like this copy of Robin Hood bearing the NCI’s 210 00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:11,840 service mark. 211 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:12,340 CEDs? 212 00:12:12,340 --> 00:12:13,240 You mean those things from RCA? 213 00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:15,340 That really failed format that was video on a vinyl disc? 214 00:12:15,340 --> 00:12:17,720 Is he gonna do a video about it sometime? 215 00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:18,220 Yes. 216 00:12:18,640 --> 00:12:22,500 Another big development was the real-time captioning console, which allowed for captioning 217 00:12:22,510 --> 00:12:24,860 of live and unscripted events. 218 00:12:24,860 --> 00:12:29,280 Stenographers were hired to furiously spit out captions of newscasts, sporting events, 219 00:12:29,280 --> 00:12:31,450 and other unscripted programs. 220 00:12:31,450 --> 00:12:35,700 Of course, accuracy wasn’t exactly perfect, and one of the downsides was that the captions 221 00:12:35,700 --> 00:12:40,010 would often appear with a fair delay, but hey, it was better than nothing. 222 00:12:40,010 --> 00:12:44,780 But the real windfall came in early 1991 when Congress finally got around to passing the 223 00:12:44,780 --> 00:12:48,310 Television Circuitry Decoder Act of 1990. 224 00:12:48,310 --> 00:12:53,250 This required all televisions of screen size 13 inches or greater to include the ability 225 00:12:53,250 --> 00:12:55,490 to display closed captioning. 226 00:12:55,490 --> 00:12:58,760 The law went into effect on July 1st, 1993, 227 00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:03,000 and from that point on the important accessibility feature became… 228 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:04,780 more accessible. 229 00:13:04,780 --> 00:13:09,700 This TV was made in 1994, and sure enough--closed captioning can be turned on via a few button 230 00:13:09,700 --> 00:13:11,840 presses on the remote. 231 00:13:13,530 --> 00:13:18,920 When DVD rolled along in 1996, suddenly closed captioning got a whole lot more interesting. 232 00:13:18,920 --> 00:13:20,250 And for a number of reasons. 233 00:13:20,250 --> 00:13:23,980 First, DVD players natively support subtitles. 234 00:13:23,980 --> 00:13:28,400 Subtitles in a DVD work very differently from the Line 21 closed captioning, as they are 235 00:13:28,410 --> 00:13:31,870 stored on the DVD as series of images. 236 00:13:31,870 --> 00:13:36,560 When you toggle them on, the DVD player is stamping semi-transparent bitmaps on top of 237 00:13:36,560 --> 00:13:41,040 the video, and because of this many languages could be supported without needing to have 238 00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:43,300 support for their character sets. 239 00:13:43,300 --> 00:13:47,940 This also explains why the subtitles can look so different from DVD to DVD. 240 00:13:47,940 --> 00:13:51,800 But--DVD still supported line 21 closed captioning. 241 00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:56,360 That’s pretty remarkable once you realize that in order to do that, the DVD player has 242 00:13:56,370 --> 00:14:00,790 to do its own line 21 encoding from metadata on the disc. 243 00:14:00,790 --> 00:14:05,720 The video files on the disc don’t contain anything outside the frame, so the DVD player 244 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:10,150 itself has to generate the vertical blanking interval and shove that captioning data into 245 00:14:10,150 --> 00:14:12,000 line 21. 246 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:16,450 This just happened in the background, enabling those who relied on captions to use their 247 00:14:16,450 --> 00:14:18,810 existing equipment if they preferred. 248 00:14:18,810 --> 00:14:23,560 This was also useful in a scenario like a hotel, where a central DVD player might be 249 00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:26,980 broadcasting the same program to many televisions. 250 00:14:26,980 --> 00:14:30,050 Then only those who wanted captions would view them. 251 00:14:30,050 --> 00:14:33,700 Of course, now I needed to know if Blu-Ray supported line 21 captions. 252 00:14:33,700 --> 00:14:38,870 It looks like it doesn’t given that over HDMI there is no vertical blanking interval, 253 00:14:38,870 --> 00:14:42,080 and being an HD format what’s the point? 254 00:14:42,080 --> 00:14:43,080 BUT! 255 00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:47,360 The PlayStation 3 has a composite output, so let’s see if anything happens. 256 00:14:47,800 --> 00:14:48,440 Oh. 257 00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:56,660 And just as another test--would the PS3 send Line 21 captions out with DVDs? 258 00:14:56,670 --> 00:14:57,760 Looks like it does! 259 00:14:57,760 --> 00:14:59,920 Look at Sony being all backward compatible. 260 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:00,920 Wait… 261 00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:04,230 Did you know that closed captioning systems exist for movie theaters? 262 00:15:04,230 --> 00:15:08,930 I’ve only ever seen these systems in person at theme park shows, but the system is very 263 00:15:08,930 --> 00:15:09,930 clever. 264 00:15:09,930 --> 00:15:13,370 At the rear of the theater is an LED dot matrix display. 265 00:15:13,370 --> 00:15:17,380 This display is showing subtitles for the film...backwards. 266 00:15:17,380 --> 00:15:21,590 The idea is that, if you need captions, the theater will provide you with a rectangular 267 00:15:21,590 --> 00:15:26,660 piece of plexiglass on a stand, and by placing this in front of you, you can aim it to reflect 268 00:15:26,660 --> 00:15:32,450 an image of that display into your eyes, either below the screen or on top of it if you choose. 269 00:15:32,450 --> 00:15:37,920 And since the reflection reverses the image, the previously backwards text appears forwards. 270 00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:41,720 The most common of these systems is the Rear Window Captioning System, also created in 271 00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:43,880 part by WGBH Boston. 272 00:15:43,880 --> 00:15:45,970 Jeez, those folks are nice. 273 00:15:45,970 --> 00:15:50,980 Anyway, if you’ve ever looked behind you and saw a display board with backwards subtitles--now 274 00:15:50,980 --> 00:15:52,240 you know what that’s for. 275 00:15:52,240 --> 00:15:55,700 Online streaming services seem to handle closed captioning differently. 276 00:15:55,700 --> 00:16:00,440 One thing I’ve noticed with the way Netflix handles it, is that the captions can be forced on. 277 00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:04,040 I’m pretty sure Blu-Ray can do this, too--and maybe even DVDs. 278 00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:07,440 The practical upshot of doing this is that any on-screen text, such as 279 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:09,560 can be automatically 280 00:16:09,570 --> 00:16:13,670 translated into a different language if a different audio track is selected. 281 00:16:13,670 --> 00:16:15,240 That’s pretty handy. 282 00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:19,280 One thing that the hearing impaired can look forward to is real-time captioning. 283 00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:23,040 I’m sure this is already in development, but this would be a socially acceptable use 284 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:25,160 of something like Google Glass. 285 00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:29,300 With speech-recognition technology as advanced as it already is, I suspect it will not be 286 00:16:29,300 --> 00:16:33,240 long before a simple glasses-like device enables real-time captioning. 287 00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:38,320 Oh wait, of course it’s already a thing and you can find some links in the description. 288 00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:42,050 But before I go--did you notice that there were three modes on this closed captioning 289 00:16:42,050 --> 00:16:43,050 decoder? 290 00:16:43,050 --> 00:16:45,310 There’s TV, which does nothing. 291 00:16:45,310 --> 00:16:48,310 There’s Caption which does… captions. 292 00:16:48,310 --> 00:16:50,310 And then, there’s Text. 293 00:16:50,310 --> 00:16:52,760 What happens if I turn that mode on? 294 00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:53,860 Interesting. 295 00:16:53,860 --> 00:16:56,930 A black box covers almost all of the screen. 296 00:16:56,930 --> 00:16:58,920 What could that be for? 297 00:16:59,280 --> 00:17:00,280 That’s right James. 298 00:17:00,280 --> 00:17:01,820 You’ve waited so long. 299 00:17:01,820 --> 00:17:03,100 It’s coming. 300 00:17:03,100 --> 00:17:08,150 Soon, we’ll talk about Teletext, the much more advanced sibling to closed captioning 301 00:17:08,150 --> 00:17:11,970 that much of Europe enjoyed, but which never caught on here in the States. 302 00:17:11,970 --> 00:17:14,839 So, uh, stay tuned for that. 303 00:17:14,839 --> 00:17:16,910 Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoyed the video! 304 00:17:16,910 --> 00:17:21,660 I think that closed captions are now something we very much take for granted, and the hearing 305 00:17:21,660 --> 00:17:24,339 impaired are very thankful that we do. 306 00:17:24,339 --> 00:17:28,730 Though it took an act of Congress, I’m glad that we finally decided to give the hearing impaired 307 00:17:28,730 --> 00:17:32,000 the same access to television that the rest of us have. 308 00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:36,150 As always, thank you to everyone who supports the channel on Patreon, especially the fine 309 00:17:36,150 --> 00:17:38,540 folks that are scrolling up your screen. 310 00:17:38,540 --> 00:17:43,020 With the support of people just like you, Technology Connections has gone from my hobby 311 00:17:43,020 --> 00:17:45,340 to, well, this! 312 00:17:45,340 --> 00:17:47,260 And I’m very thankful for that. 313 00:17:47,260 --> 00:17:51,410 If you would like to support the channel and get perks like early video access, behind-the-scenes 314 00:17:51,410 --> 00:17:56,130 stuff, as well as other Patreon-exclusive content, please check out my Patreon page. 315 00:17:56,130 --> 00:17:58,700 Thank you for your consideration, and I’ll see you next time! 316 00:17:59,140 --> 00:18:01,180 ♫ insufferably smooth jazz ♫ 317 00:18:04,100 --> 00:18:08,220 I accidentally discovered something while shooting B-roll for this video. 318 00:18:08,220 --> 00:18:12,770 Earlier I made a video on a little something called Macrovision, an analog copy protection 319 00:18:12,770 --> 00:18:13,790 scheme. 320 00:18:13,790 --> 00:18:18,180 This deliberately screwed with the vertical blanking interval to confuse VCRs, and indeed 321 00:18:18,180 --> 00:18:22,160 it created a few problems for my capturing process this time. 322 00:18:22,160 --> 00:18:26,770 To help make the caption data easier to see, I tried playing a Laserdisc which is known 323 00:18:26,770 --> 00:18:29,190 for not having Macrovision. 324 00:18:29,190 --> 00:18:32,050 And now, I think I know why. 325 00:18:32,050 --> 00:18:36,510 Laserdiscs are chock full of other barcode-like things in the blanking interval, and judging 326 00:18:36,510 --> 00:18:40,720 by how they are jittering around, I’m thinking this is what the player looks for when skipping 327 00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:43,340 tracks or even just looking at the timecode. 328 00:18:43,340 --> 00:18:49,340 And, assuming this is true, this would explain why Macrovision never made it to Laserdisc. 329 00:18:49,340 --> 00:18:52,890 Laserdisc had already done its own screwing around with the vertical blanking interval--in 330 00:18:52,890 --> 00:18:56,750 its case to create the control system for the format--and trying to put Macrovision 331 00:18:56,750 --> 00:18:59,260 in there would probably break it. 332 00:18:59,720 --> 00:19:03,380 And while we’re on the subject of closed captioning, I’ve finally turned on community 333 00:19:03,380 --> 00:19:05,790 subtitle submissions for the channel. 334 00:19:05,790 --> 00:19:09,470 If you speak another language and are willing to help out by translating my videos into 335 00:19:09,470 --> 00:19:14,040 that second language, please check out the link below with instructions on how to do so. 336 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:17,740 This would be really helpful to me to give exposure to the channel in other countries, 337 00:19:17,740 --> 00:19:19,650 as well as just being pretty neat. 338 00:19:19,650 --> 00:19:22,440 If you decide to do it, I promise you’ll get your very own 339 00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:25,580 Unofficial Official Imaginary Badge of Complete Awesomeness. 340 00:19:26,220 --> 00:19:28,560 You’ll know it’s true so long as you believe. 341 00:19:29,180 --> 00:19:33,640 Hey, for everyone who used these captions--I'm sorry they were on top of other captions so frequently. 342 00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:37,660 I REALLY REALLY wish that YouTube would let me move them around like.. you know... 343 00:19:37,660 --> 00:19:40,060 like we could in 1980. 344 00:19:41,420 --> 00:19:42,860 That'd be swell.