# Am I The Only One with Closed Captioning Gibberish???



## MikeekiM (Oct 1, 2006)

My closed captioning is consistently bad...

I don't have the same problem on my SD DirecTiVos...

Am I the only one getting a lot of gibberish? Is there a fix?


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## TMullenJr (Feb 23, 2006)

My g/f is the deaf one in the house & she hasn't mentioned anything to me about current issues. She is usually quick to point out issues. 

Do you notice it on specific channels or all channels?


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

Okay...

What channels?
What programs?
MPEG-4 Channels?
MPEG-2 HD ?
Locals?

Please... Please more details... as DirecTV wants to know exact detail cases so they can do the necessary analysis on it... and try to get it fixed ASAP


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## Capmeister (Sep 16, 2003)

I'm getting some gibberish occasionally on OTA shows, and this is fairly new. Last couple of weeks. Heroes, on Monday, via WEYI-DT out of Flint/Saginaw/BayCity was garbled for a few minutes, but was fine after a commerical break. It's done that on my Fox sation as well a few times--once for an entire show, once for just part of a show.

BUT--I will say this--and this is only OTA. I went to a friend's Tivo and where the CC was giberish on my TV for the Fox show, it was in and out on their HD-Tivo (non-DirecTV--it was a series 3). And I knew it was just not processing the giberish lines because not all lines were giberish.

Let me explain. If my HR20 showed this:

Now, walk over here please.
I [email protected] to esyo se

The HD-Tivo would show:

Now, walk over here please.

And you'd hear: "Now, walk over here please. I want to see you."

So something that the Tivo doesn't see as CC, but the HR20 sees as garbled CC, I determined to be a network issue and not an HR20 issue (per se, other than the HR20 clued me into the network's CC code being wonky where as the HD-Tivo would have merely told me it wasn't there).

I will say this, it makes me wonder if the networks and Tivo and DirecTv and others don't have to work together a bit more closely, because I've now seen this same OTA garbling on ABC, NBC, and FOX, but NOT CBS. 

I've not seen it with any consistancy on any sat channel, but I do not have HD LiLs and I know that MPEG4 locals have an unrelated CC garbling problem.

That's my report.


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## rrcrosby (Dec 17, 2006)

We get garbled CC when we fast forward a recording. Our solution is to Pause for a second or 2 and it seems to catch up.

It seems like it is translating on the fly and when you fast forward it looses track.

Just my 2 bits.

Rich


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I think the quality varies greatly, depending on how the translation from spoken to caption is done, but it's rare that I see real gibberish... usually if there is an issue it's a mashup of several words that belong there.


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## MikeekiM (Oct 1, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Okay...
> 
> What channels?
> What programs?
> ...


Hi Earl... Thanks for the support...

I am not near my receiver at the moment, but will check this out as soon as possible and report back...

Mike


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## Milominderbinder2 (Oct 8, 2006)

ER on NBC last night. First watched it directly on the TV and CC was fine. Watch the recording on both HR20's and it was jibberish much of the time.

- Craig


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## Capmeister (Sep 16, 2003)

Stuart Sweet said:


> I think the quality varies greatly, depending on how the translation from spoken to caption is done, but it's rare that I see real gibberish... usually if there is an issue it's a mashup of several words that belong there.


I'm actually getting this more and more, especially on HD-OTA, but also on some normal sat channels--non HD. It's more frequent on HD-OTA, but happening all over.


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## Capmeister (Sep 16, 2003)

Milominderbinder2 said:


> ER on NBC last night. First watched it directly on the TV and CC was fine. Watch the recording on both HR20's and it was jibberish much of the time.
> 
> - Craig


Yeah, something is going on. Just watched House in HD from last Tuesday. Happend on Heroes in HD Monday night--different network. Happened a little bit on Judge Judy, SD, non-OTA.


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## Capmeister (Sep 16, 2003)

This on an SD channel... over sat.


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## kenmoo (Oct 3, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Okay...
> 
> What channels?
> What programs?
> ...


Earl...one problem as I see it is that it's random but it does occur a lot on MPEG4 HD locals in the Sacramento DMA. And more frequent on MPEG4 HD ABC series programs. This is not new for me. I just gave up trying to get it fixed. One strange thing I did notice recently that may make sense to a D* Technician is that I can have gibberish with mixed Spanish for a whole program. I wanted to take a photo of it one night one night for Capmeister and bookmarked a specific spot where the CC was horrible. We continued the watch the program to finish (with scrambled/Spanish CC) and I went back to the bookmark and every caption was perfect in translation both in front of and after the bookmark? It was like the HR20 has an CC error correction program built into the code but it only works after the first playback? How can this be?


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## leesweet (Jul 15, 2003)

I'll try to add more examples, but on OTA channels, I've seen a bit of the Spanish CC at the end of the English one. That is, a more or less correct line of English CC, and then a single Spanish word or part of one attached to the end.


BTW, CC isn't 'translated', it's actually typed in, either on the fly for news and other live programs, or ahead of time for scripted/recorded shows. You can tell which ones they gave the script to the captioners when technical and other hard words are misspelled!


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## Capmeister (Sep 16, 2003)

leesweet said:


> I'll try to add more examples, but on OTA channels, I've seen a bit of the Spanish CC at the end of the English one. That is, a more or less correct line of English CC, and then a single Spanish word or part of one attached to the end.


This happens to me every week, via OTA, at the end of Pushing Daisies, when they're giving scenes from next week's show. I see remnants of the Spanish CC.


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