captioning problem "When We Left Earth"

[astrohip]

Last week I watched parts 1&2 of WWLE. The captioning was perfect. It was the type of captions that are obviously done in advance, where the words pop up completely formed, a sentence at a time. They appear as the person speaks, so those of us who are HOH can listen & watch/read at the same time.

Tonight I watched Sunday's episodes, parts 3&4. The captions were the exact opposite. It was as if I was watching a live newscast. The captions were scrolling, full of mis-types & errors, and appeared several seconds after the audio. It was so bad I couldn't watch it.

1) For those of you who use captions, was it like this for you also?

2) Why would one week be perfect glorious captions, and the next be unwatchable garbage?

Boo to Discovery Channel for doing this. I was mesmerized watching the first week, and had to delete this week (after skipping around to confirm the entire two hours was the same). :down::down::down::mad:

[WinBear]

Are you watching the HD version or SD? I can check the HD of the 2nd episode probably, but I doubt I can undelete the first one.

[astrohip]

Are you watching the HD version or SD? I can check the HD of the 2nd episode probably, but I doubt I can undelete the first one.
SD.

Comcast Houston Discover SD channel 29

We don't get Discover in HD yet.

Thanks!!

[WinBear]

Without the ep1 point of reference, I'd say both ep2 and ep3 have the symptoms you describe in HD. There's a 2-3 second lag before the captions.

[bicker]

We watched the show last night. My wife is hearing impaired and usually calls my attention to problems with captioning, and she didn't this time, so evidently it was okay here. :shrug:

[trainman]

2) Why would one week be perfect glorious captions, and the next be unwatchable garbage?

Sounds like, for whatever reason -- and there are a huge number of possible reasons -- they didn't get the captioning completely finished before the initial broadcast of episodes 3 and 4, so they had to do the captions live instead.

In theory, all future broadcasts of episodes 3 and 4 should have the "correct" captioning, similar to what you saw on episodes 1 and 2.

[astrohip]

Thanks. At this time, no episodes scheduled to be reshown. I'll change my SP to ALL to make sure I catch the next go-round.

[mattack]

In theory, all future broadcasts of episodes 3 and 4 should have the "correct" captioning, similar to what you saw on episodes 1 and 2.

Has this ever happened? I never thought they actually re-did captions on TV shows.
(Obviously for DVDs, they will do subtitles, which may be originally based on the closed captions, but they're more professionally done, with _far_ fewer typos. Not nonexistant, but far far fewer.)

[bicker]

Closed captions are copyrighted. Unless the production company gets permission, if they have to apply digital closed captions to something that was originally only closed captioned via analog, then they have to do the captioning again.

[WinBear]

I learned that there are 6 hours of content for this show. They are initially airing as 3 episodes of 2 hours each, but you may see them broken up into one hour pieces. The 2 hour versions use the episode title for only one of the hours, which means you need to check duration.

[trainman]

I never thought they actually re-did captions on TV shows.

The situation that seems to have happened with episodes 3 and 4 of "When We Left Earth" wouldn't really be a re-do. The captions on the first airing were substitutes due to a technical difficulty; the "real" captions were in production separately.

Closed captions are copyrighted. Unless the production company gets permission, if they have to apply digital closed captions to something that was originally only closed captioned via analog, then they have to do the captioning again.

I just want to make clear that the digital/analog distinction apparently has nothing to do with what happened here -- since this is a brand-new show, presumably, either the captioning company can prepare a "digital" and an "analog" version of the captions, or the post-production company and/or Discovery Channel can encode the same captioning file onto both their "digital" and "analog" master tapes. (It's been three years since I was employed by a captioner, but back then, the latter is what happened -- we only ever needed to send the networks or production companies one version of the captioning file.)

What usually happens in a situation where a show is re-airing in some other form is that the production company goes back to the captioning company that did the original captions, which can take their file of the original captions and "reformat" the file (that's what the captioning company where I worked called it; others might use a different term). Therefore, they keep as much of the original captioning as possible; the captioning company just has to change the timing and, if the viewers are lucky, fix any errors that crept into the captions for the original broadcast. :D

This most commonly comes up when a show goes into syndication, and thus gets edited. I did a fair number of syndication-related reformats while I was a captioner, of shows ranging from "Early Edition" to "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

[astrohip]

Sounds like, for whatever reason -- and there are a huge number of possible reasons -- they didn't get the captioning completely finished before the initial broadcast of episodes 3 and 4, so they had to do the captions live instead.

In theory, all future broadcasts of episodes 3 and 4 should have the "correct" captioning, similar to what you saw on episodes 1 and 2.
Nope, didn't work. I recorded a couple more showings of eps 3/4, and they were both the same--terribly delayed.

And tonight, I watched eps 5/6. The same crap. Captioned as if it was a live show--delayed, full of errors, missing sentences. Captions would go blank for 5 or 6 seconds, then a few words would go flying by. So after a few minutes, I stopped the recording.

It's hard to imagine the process behind this garbage. How could a mainstream broadcast show be captioned so poorly?

[astrohip]

I'm going to mail a complaint, so Discovery Channel will be aware of this. It's possible no one in a position of authority even knows. It beats whining . . . :rolleyes:

Bill Goodwyn
President, Domestic Distribution & Enterprises
Discovery Communications
One Discovery Place
Silver Spring, MD 20910

[bicker]

My wife is hearing impaired and dependent on closed captions. She didn't have a big problem with the captions on ep 3/4.

[nirisahn]

I had problems with the closed captioning on the final 2-hour installment, too. The first two 2-hour installments were perfect. This last one was beyond terribly annoying. I have trouble picking voices out from background music and noise, so I usually have the closed captioning on. I've never seen it so bad on a pre-recorded show before.

[astrohip]

My wife is hearing impaired and dependent on closed captions. She didn't have a big problem with the captions on ep 3/4.

I had problems with the closed captioning on the final 2-hour installment, too. The first two 2-hour installments were perfect. This last one was beyond terribly annoying. I have trouble picking voices out from background music and noise, so I usually have the closed captioning on. I've never seen it so bad on a pre-recorded show before.
That's interesting that it would be different for us. The captions I saw were as bad as nirisahn mentions--unwatchable. And I'm easy to please with captions. I'll assume if bicker's wife had my captions, she'd have commented. But how could we have different captions? :confused:

And my 3/4 captions were as bad as the 5/6 captions, while 1/2 were perfect. Yet nirisahn's 3/4 were perfect, but not 5/6. :confused::confused::confused: