The FCC shouldn’t apply its recently approved closed...
The FCC shouldn’t apply its recently approved closed caption quality standards to captions it may require for online video clips, said Disney (http://bit.ly/1jDRePz), NAB (http://bit.ly/1kVUmG4) and NCTA (http://bit.ly/1nT7D72) in their respective meetings this week with Maria Kirby, legal adviser to…
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FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, said ex parte filings in docket 11-154. An online video clip rule is expected on the agenda of July’s FCC meeting (CD June 18 p10) (See separate report in this issue.) “It is not reasonable for the Commission to apply the same captioning quality standards that it established for televised full-length programming that is subsequently posted online,” said NAB. Clips taken from an existing captioned TV program are often edited, meaning the original captions can’t be repurposed, NAB said. Online video postings can also have inherent synchronicity issues, NAB said. Companies responsible for captioning may turn to technology -- such as voice recognition -- to meet new FCC captioning requirements, Disney said. Quality standards for captions produced with new technology should be relaxed, it said. “The FCC could consider adopting a quality safe harbor for entities using the best available voice recognition technology.” The FCC shouldn’t adopt rules that could “stymie” experimentation by tying online clip captions to “standards developed for the more mature area of captioning for traditional full-length television programming,” NCTA said.