Overview of Draft Broadcasting Services (Television Captioning) Standard 2013

1. Approach of the draft standard

2. Key changes

3. Next steps

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Approach of the draft standard

> The object of the draft standard is to specify mandatory requirements for broadcasters and narrowcasters, that relate to quality of captioning, to ensure that captioning services are meaningful to deaf and hearing impaired viewers.

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Approach of the draft standard

Approach of the draft standard> A holistic approach to determining the quality

of captioning services> Quality is determined as the cumulative effect of

readability, accuracy and comprehensibility> When determining readability, accuracy and

comprehensibility, the factors listed must be considered in the context of the program as a whole

> The standards apply equally to live and pre prepared captions – the focus is on the outcome for the viewer.

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Approach of the draft standard> Readability refers to how the captions look

and includes:> Colour and font being used in a way that makes

captions legible> Caption lines ending in a way that makes each

caption an understandable segment> Use of standard punctuation> Positioning of captions to avoid obscuring any

important visuals or on screen text> Captions being no more than three lines long

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Approach of the draft standard> Accuracy refers to captions accurately

recreating the soundtrack of the program and includes:> Whether spoken content has been captioned> Whether captions are verbatim, or if verbatim not

possible, whether captions reflect the actual meaning of spoken content

> Capturing tone and manner> Captioning of music and sound effects

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Approach of the draft standard> Comprehensibility refers to the ability to

simultaneously follow the visuals and the soundtrack of a program and includes:> Identifying and distinguishing between speakers> The length of time captions are displayed> The extent to which the captions coincide with

relevant speech, music or sound effects> Whether words are spelt correctly> The extent to which a caption over runs a shot or

scene change

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Next Steps> The draft standard was released for comment on

5 December 2012

> Comments are due by Tuesday 22 January 2013

> Standard to be finalised April – June 2013

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