Specially developed for hearing-impaired people, Closed Captions are the text version of the spoken part of a television, movie or PC presentation. In fact, it does more. For example, when the audio cannot be heard for various reasons such as in a noisy environment like an airport, or an environment that must be kept quiet like a hospital, the closed captions can be very helpful to read. In a word, the closed captions allows DTV viewers to enjoy TV shows without any problem when hearing disabilities by displaying the audio section of a TV show as text on the TV screen.
More about closed captions
Usually, the closed caption information is enclosed within the video signal, in the line 21 of the VBI (vertical blanking interval). To view the closed caption text, viewers need to have a decoder in the TV or set-top box.
Generally, viewers are allowed to turn the closed captions on or off on the onscreen menu of newer televisions, while, they cannot turn off the open captions because it’s an integral of a TV transmission.
Although most DTV programs are captioned in advance of transmission, some other DTV shows like live news broadcasts need the real time captioning, which likes a stenographer listens to the broadcast and types a shorthand version into a show converting the shorthand into captions and adding the data to the television signal.
Why I cannot view the closed captions on my HDTV shows?
There are two reasons for this problem:
- The improper set on the set-top box and / or DTV causes the DTV closed captions unable to view.
- The cable or satellite provider’ system may encounter some technical problems which prevent the DTV closed captions from being received and decoded by the set-top box or DTV successfully.
What should I do if I cannot view the DTV closed captions?
Read carefully your manual about closed captions for DTV shows provided by your cable or satellite provider, where may contain the solution.
Check if the captioning function on your set-top box or Digital TV is turned on or not.
If the problem still exists, you need to contact the cable or satellite company for further help.
