Obviously, the main function of subtitles and closed captions is for deaf and hard of hearing people to follow what’s happening on screen.
There are, however, many other advantages to having captions on a video.
One of the most surprising of these is a boost in SEO, helping your video, website, and business to all become more visible to the wider world. Read more →
The Covid-19 pandemic took the world by surprise, with practically everything about modern life changing as a result.
Some things that happened were obvious, such as the airlines having a hard time staying afloat with all flights being grounded. But other things happened that no one expected. Read more →
No one would disagree that life is difficult for those with hearing loss, but modern technology is at least making the struggle a little easier than previous generations.
Since the smartphone arrived on the scene in recent years, technology has been improving at an exponential rate.
Our phones can do ridiculous things now, from tracking your cholesterol to pinpointing gunshots, so it’s not surprising that there are plenty of apps for hearing loss out there for people to try.
We’ve picked five free apps for you to check out, which, hopefully, make your life a little easier. Read more →
Offline Captioning is a simple concept, but unfortunately, the vast majority of online videos don’t have them.
We explain what offline captioning is, where it can be used, and why you should always use captions in your videos. Read more →
When you think of a stenographer, you probably picture someone sitting in a courtroom, frantically typing out everything that’s being said, but this is just a simplified version we see on TV.
In reality, it’s more complicated than that, and once people start using words like typist, palantypist, and transcriptionist, then things really start to get confusing. Read more →
Do you find the phone difficult or frustrating to use? Your feedback is needed for a UK-wide survey on phone captions for deaf and hard of hearing people.
Historically, phone captions in the UK have been provided by Action on Hearing Loss via TypeTalk, then Text Relay and Next Generation Text Relay service (NGTS). The Next Generation Text Relay service allows people who are deaf and speech impaired make phone calls via a trained operator who types what they hear or speaks what the caller types to the called party. The text output is streamed through to a smartphone, tablet or PC/laptop. The deaf person can use voice over, they can speak during the call and listen, and read the captions at the same time.
A few years ago, CapTel for telephones (then WebCapTel for computers and smartphones) was introduced to the UK but was withdrawn due to lack of funding. One of CapTel’s and WebCapTel’s first users was Tina Lannin, who worked as the Finance Manager for Hearing Concern (now Hearing Link). Tina’s job entailed daily phone calls to payroll and clients, discussing numbers over the phone, so the captioned telephony service had to be very accurate.
I loved CapTel. It was so fast and accurate that no one even realised I was almost totally deaf and was relying on reading the captions appearing on my telephone screen.
– Tina Lannin, 121 Captions
We look at the USA and their captioned telephony services with envy. They have so much more choice than we do. UK Council on Deafness (UKCoD) are carrying out a survey to find out about your experiences of telephone communications in the UK, and whether they can be improved or if you are happy with them.
Research by Ofcom and BT has continued to focus on previous users of Text Relay rather than those of us who preferred the faster and more natural CapTel phone captions. The aim of UKCoD’s survey is to capture those views and provide more balance to the survey to demonstrate the need for significant improvements.
Please complete the survey on how deaf and hard of hearing people use the telephone
Survey deadline: 5 September 2016
UKCoD is extending a previous survey to the wider deaf community. This is an updated survey which hopes to capture the experiences and thoughts of all deaf people. The feedback from this survey can be used to demonstrate the need for improvements to Ofcom and telephone communication providers, focus communication resources on those who are missing out, and improve the NGTS experience through more training.
UKCoD have had some very useful feedback already.
More survey respondents have a mobile phone than a landline. Many have stuck with the same provider for many years. (Does this sound familiar?)
Most deaf and hard of hearing people rely on text messages and email, but to get a quicker response, or simply because there is no other way, they sometimes need to contact businesses, public sector, hospitals and their GPs direct, by attempting to make a phone call using NGTS or asking a hearing person to phone for them.
Many have not even heard of NGTS and of those that have, some have found difficulty in setting it up or using it. In the survey, a number of improvements to NGTS have been suggested and your thoughts on this are welcome.
Several people have found NGTS is a life changer. Being independent and being able to make your own phone calls is something that many hearing people take for granted.
You can find more information at NGTS.
It is also possible to caption your teleconference calls by pre-booking live captioning support for your call. A stenographer, palantypist or notetaker will join your call and relay captions to you within a few seconds. This service is supported by Access to Work. If you’d like to find out more about captions for teleconference calls and get 50% discount on your first live captioning session, contact us.
Consider how appropriate support and the best captions can bring added benefits to your business.
Do you know how many of your employees have hearing loss?
Chances are it’s more than you think. 15% of all adults have hearing loss. And as only 16% of hearing impaired employees wear a hearing aid, the majority remain invisible.
With employees working to an older age and young people at increased risk of hearing loss, the number of staff members who have trouble hearing is only going to increase.
So, what can you do to ensure valued employees can keep working?
It can be hard for employers to know how to get the best captions and support for their employees. So we suggest the first thing you do is to ask them what they feel they need.
If that still leaves queries, it’s time to call in external experts. In the UK organisations can benefit from Access to Work, a government scheme that provides free assessments of disabled employees’ needs.
An alternative is to ask a company with disability expertise for advice. They will assess your employee and advise on the best captions, equipment and other services to help.
The best captions and support for your employees don’t have to cost a lot. In fact, much of the support you can offer requires an outlay of just time and effort. Examples of positive support include:
• Getting your employee’s attention before you speak
• Facing them so they can lipread
• Giving them first choice of the seats in a meeting room
• Communicating via email or instant messaging
If employees need extra support like equipment or live captioning, you needn’t worry about the best captions or support blowing your budget:
• In the USA, your business may be eligible for up to $5000 tax credits
• In the UK, Access to Work may fund all or part of the cost.
Want your employees with hearing loss to understand and participate fully in meetings, training and seminars? Live captioning is the answer.
A range of companies offer captioning. But how do you work out who supplies the best captions?
You could take time to read through all the websites to compare services. So, for example we emphasise how our live captioning:
– Streams up to 300 words per minute
– Appears with less than 1 second time lag
– Streams naturally word by word rather than in chunks of text.
But the simplest way to assess what the best captions are is to test them. That’s why we offer a FREE trial of remote, live captioning so you can compare what we believe are the best captions on the market to those offered elsewhere.
Contact us today to see for yourself what the best captions look like.
What have you got to lose (except valued employees…)?
Lisa Caldwell works freelance as an accredited Phonak Roger Pen trainer with Credo Communications. You can catch up with her at credocommunications@gmail.com
Gogo LLC announces that they have reached an agreement with the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) to provide close captioning on all of their in-flight streaming content. The full release can be found at the NAD website with an excerpt below.
Deaf and hard of hearing airline passengers will soon have close captioning for on-demand in-flight entertainment videos. The National Association of the Deaf (NAD), a non-profit civil rights organization of, by, and for deaf and hard of hearing individuals, and Gogo LLC, the global leader in providing broadband connectivity solutions and wireless entertainment to the aviation industry, have reached a historic agreement for Gogo to make closed captioning available for 100 percent of programming content sourced by Gogo and streamed through its on-demand in-flight entertainment service, Gogo Vision.
This is the first agreement of its kind with an in-flight entertainment company, and is the result of the parties’ mutual intent to increase access for people who are deaf and hard of hearing to movies and television that are viewed in flight on U.S. domestic flights. Passengers using their own personal Wi-Fi enabled devices can access a Gogo Vision server located on aircraft of certain airlines that contain an extensive library of movies and television shows.
Under the agreement, Gogo has now added technology that will enable customers to have the option to display closed captions for content with closed captions sourced by Gogo; Gogo has also begun sourcing new content with closed captions where available; and Gogo will replace all of its existing sourced content with content that has closed captions through a phase-in process that will be completed by June 30, 2017. All captions will be consistent with Federal Communications Commission standards for completeness, accuracy, synchronicity, and placement.
“We are excited to work with NAD to offer Gogo Vision’s entire library of movies and TV sourced by Gogo to passengers who are deaf and hard of hearing,” said Ash ElDifrawi, Gogo’s chief commercial officer. “Watching movies on a passenger’s own device has become a very popular product for Gogo and we are excited to provide access to this product to the deaf and hard of hearing.”