Closed Caption survey: Do you use them?

[astrohip]

This survey is to get a general feel for how many of us use captions. I've noticed more & more caption talk over the last few months. A few years ago, it was a rare thread that mentioned captions in any way. Now it's fairly common. I don't know if this is because we're getting older and can't hear worth a d*mn, or whether mumbling has become a new art form.

Regardless of why, vote! And feel free to comment if you like . . .

[brnscofrnld]

I only ever turn them on when my Grandfather comes over to the house and we are watching something other then a sporting event.

[JustAllie]

Occasionally.

The most common times are when the show is, say, British (strong accents), when the characters speak too fast, or when I'm working out and the exercise machines are making too much noise.

[bicker]

My wife is hearing impaired. 'nuf sed'

[jtlytle]

I'm deaf in both ears. :)

[ZeoTiVo]

you forgot the category for "when the judge is annoying: like the middle woman judge on "So you think you can dance"

[wmcbrine]

I use them occasionally. My mother, who is not deaf or even hard of hearing, leaves them on all the time.

[Ruth]

Yep! I have it set to caption upon mute, so whenever I have trouble understanding something (not infrequent as I have some hearing problems) I press mute and then instant replay so I get the captions on the part I missed. Works great. :up:

[swinca]

One of my TVs is set to show captions when muted. I didn't do that on my newer TVs. Maybe I never figured out how.

[Ruth]

One of my TVs is set to show captions when muted. I didn't do that on my newer TVs. Maybe I never figured out how.

On my TV there is a menu for audio options where you can set this.

[Uncle Briggs]

Last season I used them on Lost and Battlestar

[megazone]

While I've watched subtitled anime and foreign films for decades, I tend to find Closed Caption highly annoying because of the 1980s style text on back background crap. Some of that is controllable on the Series3, especially on digital channels using Digital CC, but it just isn't up to par for me. And since I can hear just fine, I don't use them. I also tend to do other things while watching TV, like catching up online, so I'm more likely to be listening and NOT looking at the screen than I am to be looking and not listening.

[TIVO_GUY_HERE]

Yep! I have it set to caption upon mute, so whenever I have trouble understanding something (not infrequent as I have some hearing problems) I press mute and then instant replay so I get the captions on the part I missed. Works great. :up:

+1 to what Ruth said.

[kaszeta]

Right now my only TVs are actually monitors, so they don't have CC decoding capability (or remote controls, for that matter).

[sakura panda]

Occasionally. If someone mumbles something that I think I want to know, or when the room is noisy, because I don't like turning up the TV sound to cover some other loud sound. :D

--Katie

[Bierboy]

Good poll, Astro....I use CC on every show I watch EXCEPT sporting events (same as brnscofrnld). And I am, what I would consider (!), moderately hard of hearing.

[retired_guy]

I use them a lot. In fact, for about everything other than sporting events. Five years ago I rarely used closed captions. I recently had my hearing checked and found that I had light to moderate hearing loss, which my doctor said was typical for my age (72). He expects future generations will have even more hearing loss due to the proliferation of audio devices such as the iPod.

[rhuntington3]

Whenever dialog is difficult to understand.

[smithken31100]

My TV is not capable of showing closed captions so I never use them.

[Murdock]

I'm currently learning Spanish. I watch alot of Spanish Programming with Spanish subtitles when available.

[phox_mulder]

I do most of my television watching after midnite.

Not wanting to wake the rest of the house, I have captions on.

I'm not relying on them, but they fill the gap when the dialogue volume drops.

I recently had a dirty audio record head on my VCR.
It was not recording audio, and leaving the audio previously recorded on the tape intact.
I dubbed a couple shows to watch in another room only to find out there was no sound (and I stupidly deleted the show after dubbing but before doing a sound check) so I had to watch with captions on and volume turned down (since it was from a different program).

Because of my experience with captions, I was still able to enjoy the program and most of the time forgot I wasn't hearing the dialogue.

Oh, I have been watching more and more BBCA programs, and the captions help when you can't get past the accents.
Also helps on the spelling of the peculiar words so you can go look them up on Wikipedia to find out what they mean.

The only time I turn the captions off is when I have the kids watching with me, they find them very distracting, but I can crank the volume to make sure we all hear everything though.


phox

[classicsat]

Never. All the sets around here are too old to have CC decoders in them.

[GoHalos]

I use them only when dialog is mumbled or too soft to hear.

[rambler]

Quite often.

[Bierboy]

...my VCR....Huh? :confused:

[Soapm]

I never use closed caption but then again I never thought to use it when the dialogue was hard to hear. Thanks to this thread, I may give that a try.

[taronga]

My apartment has a noisy heat/AC unit a few feet away from the TV, so closed captioning always stays on except for basketball and when it interferes with subtitles.

[trainman]

I worked as a closed captioner for seven and a half years, so I never have the captions on at home, mainly because I now find them too annoying and frustrating (frustrating especially when there's a misspelling that I know I would have caught :D ).

[phox_mulder]

. . . my VCR.
Huh? :confused:

Don't have a TiVo in the bathroom, but do have a TV/VCR combo,
so I dub off a program when I want to take a bath.

Here, take my man card. ;)


phox

[jayfest]

I don't use them often, but I did use them for Deadwood.

[Bierboy]

Don't have a TiVo in the bathroom, but do have a TV/VCR combo,
so I dub off a program when I want to take a bath.

Here, take my man card. ;)


phoxNah....you can keep it... :D

[Soapm]

I worked as a closed captioner for seven and a half years, so I never have the captions on at home, mainly because I now find them too annoying and frustrating (frustrating especially when there's a misspelling that I know I would have caught :D ).

Nothing like a fellow journeyman critiquing another’s work…

[MickeS]

I use them frequently when I have a hard time hearing dialog, for various reasons.

The lack of them on Unbox frustrates me.

[rscar627]

Keep them on in the bedroom all the time so I can keep the volume low when I go to bed. I think it's great that BBCAmerica is telling to turn on the CC so that you can understand the shows because of the English accent. The little clips between shows are quite funny.

[dianebrat]

I voted never for myself, but view them as a very important feature for those that need them, and that's non-negotiable.

[Bierboy]

I voted never for myself, but view them as a very important feature for those that need them, and that's non-negotiable.You and MickeS look related :D

[Jonathan_S]

I worked as a closed captioner for seven and a half years, so I never have the captions on at home, mainly because I now find them too annoying and frustrating (frustrating especially when there's a misspelling that I know I would have caught :D ).
Misspellings don't bother me as much as when they have totally the wrong word.

Not just when CC doesn't match the spoken conversation; that can happen, the script changes, they make edits after the CC work is done. That doesn't bother me much.

But when the captioner clearly had to guess, and got it totaly wrong, especially when it is a technical term. For some reason that bothers me. (Not a lot, but just for a moment)

[mrmike]

I have CC on 70% of the time. I'm currently looking for an S-Video based off-board CC box to cover the other 30% of the time (SD TiVos to an HD monitor that does not have built-in CC decoding). I'm very close to designing and building my own since the extant ones are either composite only or ludicrously expensive.

[AZ_Tivo]

I have it on all the time.

[andydumi]

I use it at night when my wife falls asleep and I am still finishing up a show. I turn it down and use CC.

[I Like To Watch]

Lost
Survivor
Sopranos
Meadowlands
Torchwood

[etevo]

I'm Deaf. Ya know, one of dem guys who use hands to communicate. You may have spotted them in the mall. Fast food joint. Whatever. That's what I am! I'm also a Gallaudet grad.

Enough about myself. :) And as it goes without saying, I use CC 99% of the time. I just got a TiVo HD, and I hope I will not be disappointed. The last time I used a hard disk solution to TV recording, it bombed miserably. I remember trying this TV/video card (I forget which manufacturer, sorry.), and the captioning actually worked on my PC. But, when I recorded the programs and replayed them later, the CC info wasn't saved. :(

The other 1%? Glad you asked! It's when I play those DVD's; I actually prefer subtitles, so I turn off the CC. And yes, I've had to return a DVD player when I found out it couldn't output captioning on the component video stream. (Usually, and thankfully rare, a TV series, when distributed as a DVD season set, will only have CC's, not subtitles.)

[old64mb]

My mom loves this for her PBS stuff on the S3 I gave her. Nough said.

[wmcbrine]

And as it goes without saying, I use CC 99% of the time. I just got a TiVo HD, and I hope I will not be disappointed.If you use them 99% of the time, I doubt you'll be disappointed. It's the people who turn them on and off who are frustrated by the cumbersome interface to do so (much improved in the 8.x software, but still pretty bad -- I wonder if 9.1 changes anything?).

I remember trying this TV/video card (I forget which manufacturer, sorry.), and the captioning actually worked on my PC. But, when I recorded the programs and replayed them later, the CC info wasn't saved. :(They're saved on a Tivo. The advantage with the Series 3/Tivo HD (and I'd bet that this has been extended to the Series 2 with 9.1) is that the captions can be rendered by the Tivo itself (although, as I say, the interface to turn this on or off is cumbersome). This was necessary in order to get captions with HD, but it also means that CC can be used on older sets without it built in.

[astrohip]

I'm Deaf. Ya know, one of dem guys who use hands to communicate. You may have spotted them in the mall. Fast food joint. Whatever. That's what I am! I'm also a Gallaudet grad.

Enough about myself. :) And as it goes without saying, I use CC 99% of the time. I just got a TiVo HD, and I hope I will not be disappointed. The last time I used a hard disk solution to TV recording, it bombed miserably. I remember trying this TV/video card (I forget which manufacturer, sorry.), and the captioning actually worked on my PC. But, when I recorded the programs and replayed them later, the CC info wasn't saved. :(

The other 1%? Glad you asked! It's when I play those DVD's; I actually prefer subtitles, so I turn off the CC. And yes, I've had to return a DVD player when I found out it couldn't output captioning on the component video stream. (Usually, and thankfully rare, a TV series, when distributed as a DVD season set, will only have CC's, not subtitles.)
Congrats on graduating Gallaudet. Quite a school. I am profoundly HOH (only about 10% left), so captions are de rigueur for me. I have been *very* pleased with the S3. As you mentioned, captions in this HD age can be... well, challenging is putting it nicely. Between DVD players that don't output CC, and component signals that won't carry the CC signal, it's a PITA. The S3 handles captions incredibly well for HD signals (and SD, for that matter). They could improve the interface as wmcbrine points out, but I leave 'em on, so not that big an issue to me. It's actually one of the few things my SA8300HD does better--you can turn on CC with two clicks, and *not* leave the show in progress.

Welcome to the TiVo S3 world--you're gonna love it! :up: