my pop's a bit hard of hearing, so a few years ago i got the idea of turning on the closed captions on his tv.
right away i noticed that it helped me when i missed a word—maybe i have a little hearing problem too—so i started using the cc when i watched tv.
then came disillusion.
trouble is the cc isn't always accurate. since my hearing is at least close to normal, i notice when cc typists leave out words or get them wrong—and it's a lot.
sometimes whole sentences get skipped. sometimes words are wrong but similar, other times totally unintelligible, including people's names. sometimes the meaning of a sentence gets completely reversed—for example, by adding or omitting "no" or "not" or "un-."
movies and pbs-type documentaries tend to have better cc's, but almost anything can have mistakes, and live shows—like news—tend to be worst.
producers need to become aware of the problem so they at least have the option of deciding whether a program merits more time and money to make the cc's reliable.
last year i saw a kerry ad with undecipherable closed captions.
i can't help wondering if it cost him any states.
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