sales overview: telestream captioning products 2014essentially, many existing vantage users ask...

Sales Overview: Telestream Captioning Products 2014

Closed Captioning Products Sales Information

2

Closed Captioning ProductsSales Overview

Copyright and Trademark Notice

©2014 Telestream, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, altered, or translated into any languages without written permission of Telestream, Inc. Information and specifications in this document are subject to change without notice. All negotiated resolution times are approximate and not binding. Telestream, Inc. assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions, or inaccuracies that may appear in this guide.

Telestream, CaptionMaker, Episode, Flip4Mac, FlipFac-tory, Flip Player, Lightspeed, ScreenFlow, Vantage, Wirecast, GraphicsFactory, MetaFlip, MotionResolve, and Split-and-Stitch are registered trademarks and Pipeline, MacCaption, e-Captioning, and Switch are trademarks of Telestream, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Telestream, Inc.848 Gold Flat RoadNevada City, CA 95959Phone: +1 530-470-1300

3


Table of Contents Introduction 4Sales History 4Caption Creation vs. “e-Captioning processing” 4Caption file types, SCC, SMPTE TT 2052, STL, etc. 5Why is closed captioning important to broadcasters and what is the urgency? 5Competition, Price, Feature comparison 6 Unique features and functions 7How do caption products integrate with Vantage today? 8What caption features are currently found in Vantage that accepts caption data? 8Sample Workflows and 1,2 punches that help drive both caption products and Vantage sales 8How we make life easier 9Who are target customer types? 9Sales promotions or initiatives, trial licenses for current FlipFactory or Vantage users 9Resellers and captioning 10Summary Elevator Pitch: State the problem, explain the solution 10Questions to ask prospective clients 10Unofficial Vantage + CaptionMaker workflow examples 12Glossary 14

4


IntroductionMacCaption™ and CaptionMaker® software are now a part of the Telestream Enterprise product lineup. This document describes the key technical, legislative, and historical factors that have and will continue to drive sales of captioning products in today’s file based media industry. The intention of this document is to share the knowledge of the new Telestream caption team with the entire sales team to help bring new leads and close crit-ical Vantage deals that require captioning capabilities.

Sales History Closed captioning for TV technology did not become a lucrative money maker until U.S., Mexican, and Canadi-an laws passed that required TV broadcasters to air TV shows with captioning. In 1990 the U.S. passed 2 acts, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Televi-sion Decoder Circuitry Act. CaptionMaker and MacCap-tion were developed and priced to meet the needs of professional broadcasters that needed to comply with these and other legislations.

CaptionMaker and MacCaption have been competing with Softel for over 10 years and have been selling to caption service companies like Vitac, Aberdeen, Cap-tionMax, Caption Colorado, and many local small cap-tioning shops for caption creation. Major networks and most TV broadcasters farm out the caption creation to service companies since this process requires a team of captioners.

Since 2010, the majority of our sales have NOT come from caption creation. The sales to major networks, VOD teams, and distribution studios mainly stem from their need to deal with previously encoded file based captions and include the following:

• Manage and troubleshoot large archives of caption data files such as .CAP and .SCC

• Caption file extraction from video file formats such as MOV, MPEG, and MXF

• Conversion of caption file types for Internet delivery such as SCC to SMPTE TT 2052

• Caption frame rate conversion 29.97df to 23.98 and back

• Correcting sync issues in caption files• Repurposing and re-editing video content without

losing captions• Avid D-Track workflows with AAF caption files• ProRes Final Cut Pro caption workflows for em-

bedding and extracting for delivery to Vantage and FlipFactory users

• Caption verification in digital video file formats for both SD line 21 and HD VANC line 9

Caption Creation vs. “e-Captioning processing”Caption creation in Post is a time intensive process. Typically, an offline captioner of pre-recorded videos needs to create an accurate dialogue transcription and then use captioning software to synchronize, position, and format text on the screen for the deaf and hard of hearing. (Note: the term “hearing impaired” is not politically correct.)

Major networks and video distribution companies do not have the staff and time to create captioning in-house for long form content. However, these teams may choose to use captioning software to create cap-tioning for very short segments in order to save time. Typically, sending captioning out-of-house to a service provider has a price of $6 per minute and a 5-day turnaround time.

Editing video content while preserving closed cap-tion data is a challenge for most broadcasters. The obstacles are limitations in non-linear editing systems that delete closed caption data when edits are made and not being able to read and verify the captions after editing or compression/transcoding has occurred. Adding the need to edit and convert TV programming for internet distribution adds a 3rd general category of obstacles.

These captioning obstacles are usually not discussed with caption service companies since they generally do caption creation only and many times don’t have a good working knowledge of file-based workflows for video delivery. As a result, broadcasters are forced to air the program after re-edit and hire a court reporter to re-caption a show as it airs with closed caption en-coding hardware. (Note: Live captioners typically charge $100 to $200 per hour.)

Hardware based closed captioning encoders from companies such as Evertz, EEG, Wohler and Link Elec-tronics are still very popular and used by broadcaster for live captioning, as well as to caption pre-recorded shows in a linear video workflow. As an alternative, these pre-recorded shows can be captioned with soft-ware only using Vantage and Captioning Software.

The processing or troubleshooting of closed caption data in a file-based workflow is what the Telestream caption team refers to as “e-Captioning”. We wanted to differentiate these software-only workflows from “captioning” which signifies the traditional linear hard-ware-based captioning that is so common in the TV industry.

5


In our marketing material we have a nice short descrip-tion:

e-Captioning™ engineAt the core of MacCaption and CaptionMaker is the e-Captioning™ engine. This revolutionary technology integrates with digital production systems to prepare and encode both standard and high definition video with FCC-compliant video captions.

• Encode closed captions to any file or tape format• Export captions for NLEs or DVD authoring sys-

tems• Embed captions into Web and mobile content• Extract captions from tapes, files, or live broadcasts• Email captions to your clients• Edit closed captions in a non-linear interface with

batch conversion and automated workflows• Enhance your closed captions with true CEA-708

features supported by ATSC DTV

Caption file types, SCC, SMPTE TT 2052, STL, etc.There are many closed caption file formats and it seems that every year we see more and more emerging. For this document we will focus on 3 general categories:

TV closed captioning files that are formatted and include data that can be used for TV broadcast utilizing the CEA-608 and/or CEA-708 specifications. They include .CAP, .SCC, and MCC.

➢Internet closed captioning files are used to play cap-tions alongside video for local desktop, online video, and mobile device app players. They include SAMI .smi, DFXP TTML, WebVTT, and SMPTE TT 2052.

Subtitle files are not formatted with the strict guide-lines of CEA-608/708 and are mostly used for foreign language translation of video content. These files are intended for DVD/Blu-ray subtitling, burn-in or open subtitles into video, and international TV systems that use DVB and ISDB standards. Included are SRT, STL (spruce DVD), STL EBU, PAC, and blu-ray BDN .XML.

The .SCC (scenarist closed caption) file format is the most popular among TV broadcasters today. There are big archives of this file format, which was originally de-signed for DVD authoring closed captioning. This file format is very limited and only supports 29.97DF and 30NDF video. However, in a file-based delivery it has been often times rigged to do 23.98 and 25 fps.

SMPTE TT 2052 is a new generation .XML captioning file that has been called “Safe Harbor” format by the FCC to be used for online video delivery. This file for-mat is currently an export option of the CaptionMaker CLI that can be used in conjunction with Vantage.

STL EBU format is used quite often in Europe for subti-tling TV programing. Currently, CaptionMaker software can convert this format to U.S. TV captioning data files.

In addition to managing and converting caption file formats, captioning data can also be embedded into ProRes .MOV, XDCAM MXF Op1a, and MPEG-2 clips for processing and transcoding in Vantage.

Essentially, many existing Vantage users ask produc-tion departments and also closed caption service companies to provide MOV, MXF, TS, MPEG, .etc. files that are ready for Vantage transcoding. This is a very popular workflow for NBC, for example. Both Mac-Caption for OSX and CaptionMaker for Windows can help post production and editing, adding both CEA-608 and CEA-708 data to deliverable files. This is also done by ad agencies and post houses delivering to DG Fast Channel, Extreme Reach and Pathfire. Cap-tion service companies that only did captioning are now being asked to deliver HD and SD video formats with captioning embedded. In the case of a company like Aberdeen Captioning, they went as far as buying Vantage to compete in that arena for file based delivery to TV stations. This has to do with the fact that neither CaptionMaker or MacCaption have transcoding. They will receive a random video file like H.264 to caption but the TV station requires MXF or MPEG-2 TS.

Why is closed captioning important to broadcasters and what is the urgency?

The honest truth is that TV broadcasters in the U.S, Mexico, and Canada must air their TV content with closed captioning because the federal government mandates it. Some broadcasters have filed for exemp-tions but many of these are now expiring.

The law that requires the broadcast industry in the U.S. to caption is The Telecommunications Act of 1996. This legislation stated that January 1, 1998 the rules would take effect for English programming and then be extended to Spanish.

6


For U.S. government agencies there was the Rehabilita-tion Act of 1998, section 508. This requires that training and informational videos developed, maintained, procured, or used by a government agency be acces-sible with captioning. This applies to distance learning programs used by or funded by the federal government.

The new law in the U.S. that requires TV broadcast-ers to also caption Internet video is called the CVAA (21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act). This law is now being implemented in parts while broadcasters are mindful of specific deadlines for com-pliance.

In September 30th 2013, the CVAA required that all pre-recorded programming edited for Internet distri-bution must be captioned. Before this date “edited for Internet” video that was previously captioned did not require captioning. Technically any minor cut or edit would have made the video exempt from having to be captioned for online video distribution. Now the broad-caster must caption edited video.

March 30, 2014 was a new CVAA deadline that required the following:

Video in a distribution provider’s library shown on TV with captions must be captioned within 45 days if aired online on or after March 30th, 2014 and before March 30th, 2015.

In Canada, the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommu-nications Commission (CRTC), has announced that all TV commercials, sponsorship messages and promos will have to be captioned from September 1, 2014.

Competition, Price, Feature comparison For Enterprise customers our competition is Softel (owned by Miranda / Belden) for file-based closed captioning workflows. Generally, comparable Soft-el’s entry level software is called “Swift Create Line 21 Edition” license costs $6,250 plus support fee of $1,600 for 1 year for a total of $7,850. When you add a variant that supports subtitle files, it’s an additional $1,750. One variant is called the DVD Open variant for support for input and export of subtitle files for disc media and open captioning. The other variant is for teletext file exports such as PAC and EBU-STL.

Transcoding or file-based encoding and decoding of caption data is not supported at all. Other Softel products that require hardware for encoding have been discontinued and are currently being integrated into Miranda iTX for linear workflows.

Our CaptionMaker Pro is the most comparable with Softel Swift Create software and has a price of $5,750 which includes 1 year of M&S.

Softel only has Windows software, while Telestream captioning software runs both on Mac and Windows with the same license. Our Mac product is called Mac-Caption.

Our pricing is as follows:

1. Desktop Product: $1,095 and includes 1 year of software maintenance

2. Pro Product: $5,750 and includes 1 year of soft ware maintenance

3. Enterprise: $10,950 and includes 1 year of soft ware maintenance

Following is the complete product comparison chart of captioning products. This chart is also available on our website and in the last page of our captioning products brochure. Please follow links below: http://www.telestream.net/captioning/compare.htm http://www.telestream.net/pdfs/brochures/bro-caption-ing.pdf

7


As a rule, the main difference between our Enterprise software and Pro is that only Enterprise allows for batch processing and automation via command line interface (CLI). All import and exports are available for manual processing in ProSo to work with Vantage only our Enterprise solution will work with a connector that runs a command .bat file that drives CaptionMaker. Pro does not have any command line interface or API. If the customer only needs to work with captioning for editing, preparation, or troubleshooting, then Pro is a good solution. Ideally, the customer should have 1 Pro license for troubleshooting and 1 Enterprise license for automation in Vantage.

Unique features and functions

There are many features and functions that separate us from Softel and other smaller competition.

• SMPTE TT 2052 .xml which is the FCC “safe harbor” format. Currently, Telestream captioning software has the only tested and deployed version of SMPTE 2052 by major broadcasters.

• File-based encoding to various video types for internet and broadcast TV (Softel is only authoring and exporting separate caption files; they do not offer embedding and extracting from common video file formats)

• Does not rely of hardware to add captioning to vid-eo files for offline content. (HD captioning hardware encoders are $7,000 to $10,000)

8


• ProRes .mov 608/708 embedding and extraction workflow

• Avid AAF export with captions, multiple languages, XDS, V-chip, and AFD tags. Ron Wallace and the rest of the Avid engineering team for Media Com-poser worked closely with the Telestream caption team to design the Avid D-Track mechanism to accept .AAF files from MacCaption and Caption-Maker. This feature has Avid’s blessing and is actively being demonstrated by Avid to customers. Competitors do not have this advantage or full Avid support.

• Extraction of multiple caption channel data from SD VBI sources, HD MXF 436M track, and .mov. These features are unique to the Telestream captioning software since they were implemented specifically for broadcasters that could not find these features in transcoding or other captioning software tools. The caption extraction speed and format support was critical to the 2014 NBC Olym-pic Games in Sochi, and they added CaptionMak-er Enterprise to all 5 Lightspeed nodes.

• iOS7 compatible captioning was developed closely with the QuickTime team and Apple’s Web team. All videos captioned on Apple.com are captioned with MacCaption software. In 2013 this iOS7 cap-tioning was added to CaptionMaker for Windows. These captions are also compatible with Quick-Time and iTunes.

• MacCaption is the only software that can author native CEA-708 caption attributes such as drop shadow, font size, up to 6 simultaneous languages, Unicode Asian Language characters and opac-ity settings. Competitors of MacCaption mainly support upconverted 608 captions to CEA-708 (similar to what Vantage does with .SCC files). The .SCC only has CEA-608 data. In order to add cap-tions from .SCC to HD video output, other software has to upconvert that data to CEA-708. MacCap-tion can upconvert also, andthe software can add true 708 captions.

How do caption products integrate with Vantage today?Captioning products do not directly integrate with Vantage. However, Vantage users can utilize the new Telestream captioning products for the following two categories:1. Automation via the CaptionMaker command-line.

This option is only available to customers who pur-chase our Enterprise captioning product. Vantage can connect to a CaptionMaker .bat script in order to edit, convert, extract, and embed caption data in an automated workflow. A document outlining the

detail of this workflow is found at the end of this paper. However, the command line-interface is constantly updated. To receive the latest com-mand line options reach out to the caption team.

2. CaptionMaker and MacCaption software can prepare and troubleshoot captioning files and captioned video file formats prior to transcode. Having access to software that can identify and fix captioning data issues is critical to broad-casters who have a file-based video delivery workflow. Without Telestream captioning soft-ware, they will have to rely on an out-of-house captioning service company and their bandwidth for helping to resolve a problematic file.

What caption features are currently found in Vantage that accept caption data from Telestream captioning software?• SCC import filter – This option allows Vantage

to accept a .SCC file for adding captions to both SD and HD transcodes. Vantage can add captioning from .SCC to MPEG-2 userdata, QuickTime caption track, and SMPTE 436M track for MXF OP1a

• QuickTime Closed Caption Track for transcode – this is an input .mov file that already contains caption data. This captioning could have been created with MacCaption or captured by Final Cut Pro using AJA hardware from tape format. Vantage has the ability to flip this file to many file format exports such as MPEG-2 TS Cablelabs, MXF OP1a, GXF, etc. without losing the caption data from the original QuickTime. This is espe-cially important to production houses who have Final Cut Pro 7 workflows.

• MXF OP1a SMPTE 436M track for transcode • MPEG-2 user data captions for transcode

Sample workflows and 1,2 punches that help drive both caption products and Vantage sales1. Final Cut Pro users can use MacCaption to

embed QuickTime 608/708 closed caption track data into ProRes or any .mov container. This can be used by Vantage to transcode to a variety of server file formats like MPEG-2 TS cablelabs, GXF, LXF, and MXF for play-out. This is a unique workflow to Telestream; especially, because MacCaption can add 608/708 captions to any .mov file in under 1 second using the “add to file” feature regardless of size, duration, or codec. NBC is very hip to this workflow because they can add as many audio tracks as they need to the input .mov file unlike MXF XDCAM OP1a which only handles 8 audio channels.

9


2. Incorrect starting timecode, formatting, or frame rate on .SCC files. This can be easily fixed with Telestream caption software in order to output and process a proper .SCC in Vantage

3. Using a Vantage connector to convert .SCC files to SMPTE TT 2052 .xml files for Internet video using the CaptionMaker CLI script.

4. Using a Vantage connector to generate Avid .AAF caption data track via CaptionMaker CLI for Avid Media Composer users. This is very unique to Van-tage since CaptionMaker can automatically convert from .SCC, CAP, CIN, ULT, etc. to Avid AAF.

5. Caption File verification post Vantage transcode. Once an MXF, MPEG-2, or QuickTime is gener-ated from Vantage, users of CaptionMaker and MacCaption can verify caption data using the QCC Multi-Format extraction tool. This is a feature in CaptionMaker that can extract CEA-608 and CEA-708 into a spreadsheet for customer verification of caption data inside of a transcoded file.

6. Open Subtitles, CaptionMaker and MacCaption can generate a QuickTime animation with alpha channel in order to overlay subtitle text for burn-in during transcode. This .mov with alpha channel can be used with the Vantage overlay feature to create open subtitled output video files. Custom-ers who work with foreign language video prefer to add open subtitles for delivery to internet and TV broadcast. Creating these small animation codec alpha channel QuickTime files from caption files is unique to CaptionMaker and MacCaption software.

7. Vantage has the ability to track the progress of the workflow with CaptionMaker scripting and report successful results and any issues during the auto-mated transcode and captioning processes. This reporting is essential to broadcasters that receive a variety of input files for captioning insertion from different sources. If a .SCC is not valid or corrupt. An error can be generated to flag that file. This report can be sent via e-mail to a caption service company or department for troubleshooting a caption project.

How we make life easier Telestream captioning products help bring the dark art of captioning within reach of TV broadcast engineers who need to manage archives of TV content that have already been captioned. Vantage and CaptionMaker provide a solution to transcode, convert, edit, trouble-shoot, modify, and deploy caption data alongside video.

Without the ability to quickly identify a captioning prob-lem and find a solution, broadcasters may only be able to rely on out-of-house service companies. This costs the broadcasters time and money for every project that becomes a challenge.

Customers, who work with captioning regularly, now have the opportunity to make Telestream a one stop shop for transcoding, captioning, professional services, and support. Currently, Softel, who is our main com-petitor, is owned by Belden, and they do not offer a file based workflow that includes transcoding. This makes our company software offerings unique to enterprise clients.

Who are target customers?

• All major broadcasters who need to comply with the new law for internet captioning delivery. (In-cluding web teams)

• VOD and QC departments who need to insure captioning data preservation during transcoding.

• Digital delivery departments who transcode to a va-riety of server formats such as GXF, LXF, and MXF with captioning

• TV broadcast file-based delivery platforms such as DG, Pathfire, Extreme Reach, DMDS, Netflix, Hulu, Apple iTunes and their customers

• Avid editing departments who need to work with captions in the D-Track via Telestream’s AAF cap-tion format.

Sales promotions or initiatives, trial licenses for current FlipFactory or Vantage users

Previously Telestream Captioning products were only available with USB dongle protection. Now, all caption-ing products require only a serial number for activation. Temporary serial numbers can be issued for any salesforce opportunity.

Like Vantage and other enterprise products, discounts can be made to the software - but not to yearly sup-port and maintenance.

10


Resellers and captioning

Adapt the message for the resellers Caption creation is not what will normally bring in large sales. But “e-captioning” combined with Vantage transcoding and delivery can open up bigger money opportunities for resellers. Specifically, the workflow to convert previously captioned video files for internet de-livery without losing closed captioning data. The FCC deadlines for the next 3 years can drive these sales and help design automated solutions for internet video delivery from broadcast TV file formats. The important thing is to communicate the rules and regulations that broadcasters must comply with. Here is a list that the CVAA covers for U.S. Broadcasters:

• March 30th, 2014: Video in a distributor or provid-er’s library shown on TV with captions must be captioned within 45 days if aired online on or after March 30th, 2014 and before March 30th, 2015.

• March 30th, 2015: Video in a distributor or provid-er’s library shown on TV with captions must be captioned within 30 days if aired online on or after March 30th, 2015 and before March 30th, 2016.

• March 30th, 2016: Video in a distributor or provid-er’s library shown on TV with captions must be captioned within 15 days if aired online on or after March 30th, 2016.

How many dealers do we need and which ones There should be at least 1 reseller assigned to every major city. The automated captioning solution and au-tomated transcoding for internet delivery is needed for local TV stations, post houses, and ad agencies.

Road trip schedule to train them or webinar Setting up presentations at local SMPTE and user group meetings regarding “e-captioning” technology is an ideal way to meet and train resellers.

Channels launch strategy or program The strategy can be designed to present both Vantage and Telestream captioning products (MacCaption/Cap-tionMaker) as a complete solution for transcoding and delivering caption data.

The Caption team can help build a depository of infor-mation, white papers, sample files, and video tutorials to help new and existing resellers understand the options available in Vantage and CaptionMaker.

Another idea is to include partners such as Avid to help promote this workflow to resellers.

Summary elevator pitch: State the problem, explain the solution

The new closed captioning legislation from the FCC is causing fire drills all over the TV broadcast industry.

Our customers are constantly calling our team to help solve and troubleshoot these difficult issues.

The consensus seems to be that closed captioning is a “dark art” that few engineers know how to deal with. These problems seem to blindside engineers and post-production teams with very little time to get a solution.

Our team of experts has solved many of these prob-lems and we have saved our customers from disaster when deadlines were on the line.

We would like your production team to get in touch with our software captioning experts to get the help they need.

Q: What do you currently do for closed captioning?

A: “We farm it out.”This is the most typical response you’ll run in to. Don’t let your sales pitch die here…

Response: Even for organizations that farm out the labor intensive parts of captioning (like transcription), captioning software is essential for other steps of the workflow. Farming out captions often involves transcoding proxy videos for upload and then converting the results. Also, many caption providers are still using linear workflows and want to migrate to file based. Finally, new FCC rules on caption accuracy and quality will force content creators to rethink their current captioning workflows, e.g. non-live shows that are currently captioned live-to-air (for time considerations) will have to move to post production captioning, which may require bringing captioning in house.

• How do you transcode proxies and re-integrate the resulting captions into your workflow?

• How do you get the captions into all the different deliverable formats you supply?

• How do you QC the captions? (timing sync, formatting, script accuracy)

• How do you troubleshoot problems with the captions?

• How do you make changes when necessary, especially last minute?

11


• How to you repurpose the captions, for example, for web/mobile/OTT?

• Is your provider prepared for the new FCC mandates on caption quality?

• Does your provider support all the formats you need to deliver, including files that work with Vantage?

• Did you know that most caption providers use Telestream’s captioning software for authoring?

A: “We currently use another captioning software.”

Response: Our software is designed for speed and convenience vs other captioning software that do not have automation. We support more formats in and out, and have the best integration with video editing systems and with Vantage. Customers have told us our software purchase price is less than the annual maintenance renewal for some competitors like Softel.• Is your current software compliant with the latest

FCC quality mandates and latest web standards like SMPTE 2052? (Why does this matter? SMPTE 2052 is very complicated and most other vendors get it wrong. We were involved with SMPTE and many top content providers for the creation of this spec, so our software has the best support.)

• How often is your software updated with new features and format support?

• Does your current software support all the delivery types you need?

• Does your current software automate the caption timing and formatting process?

• Does your current software integrate with Vantage for transcoding?

• Will your current solution still work if you switch NLEs or OS platforms?

A: “We’re currently exempt from captioning requirements.”

Response: Even if you’re exempt (and exemptions are always decreasing, not increasing), captions are how 20% of your audience access the audio content of your programming, so they have to be there and they have to be good, not an afterthought.

• (For any government, academic, or other public institution): Are you Section 508 compliant? Accessibility is required for any institution that receives any federal funding.

• (For commercials): 20% of your audience relies on captioning and won’t receive your message favorably. Also, this exemption is already gone for Canada and will be going away soon for the US.

Q: Does your current transcoding solution support closed captions through the entire process?

A: “Yes” or “Maybe”

• Does your current solution support the latest 708 digital captioning specs? (Probably not. Most of the competition has no or very limited support for 708, and are still stuck with formats like SCC which are 608 analog captions only. Vantage has the best caption support by far.)

• Does any part of your captioning workflow require a linear process? (Many captions are still done live to tape/air, or via tape-based processes.)

• Is your current software compliant with the latest FCC mandates and latest web standards like SMPTE 2052? (We are heavily involved in these processes, so we’re always at the forefront.)

• Does your transcoding solution integrate with your closed captioning workflows?

A: “No”

• Vantage + CaptionMaker is the ideal solution

Q: How do you handle automation of captioning tasks, such as conversions and delivery?

A: “We already have a solution.”

• Is your solution fully integrated on both the transcoding side and the captioning side?

• Does your solution require any manual or linear steps?

• Are there any formats you’ve been asked to deliver which your current solution does not handle?

A: “We don’t have a solution” or “Our current solution doesn’t meet our needs.”

• Vantage + CaptionMaker is the ideal solution

Q: Are you prepared for the upcoming new FCC requirements on the quality of closed captions?

A: “What?” or “No.”

• Starting March 30 2014 – clips on the internet must be captioned within 45 days after the programming is shown on broadcast TV

• In addition to the rules already in effect, the FCC recently announced new mandates on caption quality, requiring content providers to improve their captioning (accuracy, technical compatibility, etc.)

• CRTC in Canada is already enforcing new mandates on caption quality (e.g. 100% accurate script for all post produced content.)

12


• Shows that rely on low quality live captioning or outdated captioning software will have to invest in new post production and QC solutions like our software

Vantage + CaptionMaker workflow examples

Setting up CaptionMaker functionality in an automated workflow is easily done with a “Construct” and “Notify” module in Vantage. This operation is extremely valuable to broadcasters who need to repurpose TV captioning that is archived to an internet caption file such as SMPTE 2052 Time Text .xml. In addition, our software has a variety of other commands that can automated such as frame rate conversion, support for a variety of caption files that are not supported in Vantage, timecode offset of .SCC files, and quicker CC extraction for input video files to .SCC.

Below is an example of a Vantage and CaptionMaker workflow to convert .SCC to WebVTT (internet captioning file compatible with Vimeo, YouTube, and JW Player). Many broadcasters upload video to these online playback platforms and now will be required to also delivery CC files.

Workflow 1: Watch a folder for SCC files, and use CaptionMaker to convert them to WebVTT, SMPTE-TT, DFXP, etc.

1. Create a Watch action in Vantage. Set it to look for *.scc files, and create 2 variables: SCC File Path (complete path to file), and SCC File Name (will be used to create the output file names).

The screenshot above actually shows 2 example actions branching from the same SCC file: Convert to SMPTE-TT, and Convert to WebVTT. You can have any number of actions apply to each source file.

13


2. Connect this watch action to a Construct action, using the “Construct a Path” operation. This action will take the SCC file name and use it to create an output file path/name for the new WebVTT file. The result will be stored in the new variable called “WebVTT File Path”

3. Connect this Construct action to a Notify action. This is where CaptionMaker comes into play. First select the “External Shell Notifier” action type.

4. The external shell command should point to a .bat batch file which has been prepared with the right arguments for CaptionMaker. (See sample at end of document). Then add 2 new argument items. The first argument is the variable “SCC File Path” from step 1 (path to source SCC file). The second argument is set to the variable “WebVTT File Path” from step 2 (path to the output WebVTT file).

5. You should enable the “Set state to failure on non-zero result code or timeout” option.

6. The “Timeout after” setting is optional and if desired should be set to 3 minutes or so, which should be plenty of time for Caption-Maker to finish even a long conversion job (unless you are reading/writing from the video media, which can take longer).

7. When the workflow is complete, Release and Activate the workflow. Now when you put an .scc file in the watch folder, the workflow should activate and convert it to WebVTT.

“SCC File Path” Variable

“WebVTT File Path”

14


TroubleshootingIf the CaptionMaker notify action fails (CaptionMaker times out or returns a non-zero error code), then the Vantage Notify action will be notified of the failure.

aa You can right click on the failed action to find the status code.

In the above screenshot, the result code is 500. Refer-encing the CaptionMaker Command Line Documenta-tion document, we see that this error indicates:

500 CLI_BAD_HASP = no valid protec-tion key was found (This means the dongle or software license is not valid, e.g. expired or deactivated key.)

Sample .bat Batch File (must reside locally on the Vantage node)Here is a sample batch file’s contents for converting SCC to WebVTT via CaptionMaker:

“c:\Program Files (x86)\cpc\CaptionMak-er\CapMaker.exe” /ImportType=04 /Im-portFile=%1 /ExportType=91 /ExportOut-File=%2EXIT /B %ERRORLEVEL%

Notes:• ImportType and ExportType numbers are listed

in the CaptionMaker Command Line Documen-tation document. In the above example, Import-Type=04 is for .SCC files, and ExportType=91 is for WebVTT output.

• %1 and %2 are the two arguments supplied in the Vantage Notify action – these are the source file input path and output file path variables, respectively.

• The last line (“EXIT /B %ERRORLEVEL%”) en-sures that the CaptionMaker status result code is passed back up to Vantage.

Glossary

#

508 (Section 508) –

Section 508 refers to accessibility law, which requires video broadcasts and many webcasts to be made accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. Please see the official Section 508 web site for more details. Not directly related to CEA-608 and CEA-708, which are technical standards.

608 (CEA-608) –CEA-608 refers to the technical standard for caption-ing standard-definition NTSC video. It is also com-monly referred to as “Line 21 closed captioning”.

708 (CEA-708) –CEA-708 refers to the technical standards for captioning high-definition video. It is also commonly referred to as the VANC data or “Line 9 closed cap-tioning”.

15


A

Active Format Description –Active Format Description (AFD): A standard for telling a receiving device how to best frame video. For example, without AFD, a 16:9 signal which contains a pillarboxed 4:3 video would then be letterboxed for display on a 4:3 TV, making a tiny image surrounded by black bars on all sides. With AFD, the TV knows that it can crop the video so that the actual picture fills the whole screen.

ATSC –ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) is the digital television (DTV) standard used by broadcasters for HDTV and the digital broadcast of SD in the United States and Canada. ATSC supports closed captioning (608 and 708) in the metadata of the video signal.

B

Burn-in –Burn-in refers to a graphic, text, or image that is super-imposed on video, and thus becomes part of the video itself. Closed captions are not burned in, since they can be turned on and off, unlike open captions and many subtitles which cannot.

C

.CAP –A .cap file can refer to many different types of files, so you need to be careful when using them. Several for-mats of caption files have the .cap extension, including the popular Cheetah .cap format. A .cap file can also be a project file for CPC Caption maker (PC) which must be opened in CaptionMaker before exporting to another caption format.

Capture Card –A capture card is a piece of hardware for your comput-er that allows you to bring video into your computer for editing and output back to a physical format like tape. Many capture cards support closed captioning for HD and SD, including ones from Matrox, AJA, and Black-magic.

CaptionMaker –CaptionMaker is closed captioning software developed by CPC for the PC platform. CaptionMaker reads and writes all major captioning formats and supports many traditional workflows involving hardware encoders.

In addition to broadcast SD video, CaptionMaker en-codes captions for web formats like Quicktime, Flash, YouTube, and Windows Media, and also tapeless work-flows like MPEG-2 Program Streams.Closed Captioning –Closed Captioning is text that appears over video that can be turned on and off using a decoder built into most consumer television sets and cable boxes. Closed Captions differ from subtitles in that they contain infor-mation about all audio, not just dialogue.

Codec –Codec stands for “coder-decoder”, it is a method of compressing video in order to strike a balance between file size and quality. Different codecs have different data rates, aspect ratios, and methods of closed captioning in order to achieve this balance. Some examples of codecs are DV, MPEG-2, WMV, H.264, Uncompressed, and ProRes. To watch a video, your computer needs the specific codec that video uses, otherwise it will not play. Not all codecs are available for all operating sys-tems, and they may not be free to use.

Container Format –A container format is a way to encapsulate video so that it can be viewed in a video player, edited in an non-lin-ear editor, or processed in some other way. Examples of container formats are QuickTime, AVI and MXF.

D

Decoder –A decoder is a device that enables closed captions to be turned on if they are present in the video signal, essentially turning closed captions into open captions. Typically a decoder is inside your TV or cable box and you can turn captions on using your remote or a setting in the menus. There are also hardware and software decoders available that allow you to preview captions on your computer or a master tape to ensure that they are present.

Drift –“Drift” is a term used to describe a specific type of behavior of closed captions. It can either mean they are appearing progressively later than they should, or progressively earlier. Most often, this occurs slowly over the duration of a program, resulting in a discrepancy of over three seconds by the end of an hour. Drift is most often caused by a drop-frame / non-drop discrepancy.

16


Drop-Frame- Drop-frame timecode refers to a method of counting timecode in 29.97 fps video. It does not refer to actual frames of video being dropped that would affect video quality. Since 29.97 fps is not exactly 30 fps, when counting in drop-frame certain numbers in the time-code counter are skipped in order to ensure that the timecode will reflect the real-time length of the program. The counterpart of drop-frame is non-drop which does not skip numbers when counting timecode. To prevent drift, it is important to timestamp in the correct mode (or convert your captions’ timecode using Telestream-software) when closed captioning a 29.97 fps program.

DTV-DTV stands for “digital television” and is a general term encompassing digital television around the world to distinguish is from analog television (such as NTSC). In the US the standard for DTV is ATSC.

E

Elementary Stream –A data stream that contains either video or audio data, but not both. Usually associated with MPEG video files and given the extension .m2v for video, or .m2a or .ac3 for audio. Elementary MPEG-2 video streams can contain closed caption data. A Program or Transport stream can be demultiplexed, or separated, into its component Elementary streams.

Encoder –The term “encoder” typically refers to a hardware encoder, but can refer to software encoders as well. A hardware encoder is usually a rack-mounted device that accepts a video signal, marries it to closed cap-tions, and then outputs a new closed captioned video signal, usually resulting in generation loss. A software encoder, such as MacCaption, can add captions to vid-eo without a hardware encoder. You can simply encode captions to video files already present on your comput-er, or to file formats that will add captions as you output from your NLE with no generation loss.

F

Flash captioning – Flash is a product owned by Adobe which supports closed captioning when creating a flash video player with its corresponding skin. However, Flash caption-ing extends to all internet video players both custom and packaged that support both an interface for users to turn closed captioningon/off and a side car closed caption file.

G

Gio – Short for Giovanni Galvez, Telestream Captioning Ex-pert or “Captionista” that was hired during the acquisi-tion of CPC.

GXF –A video file format popularized by Grass Valley (owned by Belden). This file format is a native wrapper that can contain different video codecs that are compatible with K2 and other Grass Valley playout servers. Captioning lives in the wrapper of the GXF for HD, but can also be VBI lines for SD.

H

High Definition (HD)-High Definition is a television standard with either 720 or 1080 lines in the video signal. Closed captioning for HD is sometimes called Line 9 or VANC, and is codified under the 708 standard.

I

iOS Captioning –Closed captioning internet video files that are com-patible with the native H.264 video player on devices that support the Apple iOS operating system. These devices include iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad.

JJW Player –is the world’s most popular HTML5/Flash embeddable media player for websites. It supports a wide array of platforms (including robust mobile support) and media formats. It is open-source and easy to configure, cus-tomize and extend. Has support for closed captioning via WebVTT .VTT file format. This player is used by many major broadcasters for internet video distribution.

K

K2 Server – This is a popular playout server from Grass Valley. It can accept GXF SD and HD captioned files transcoded from Vantage. Recently, they added sup-port for MXF OP1a with captions in the SMPTE-436M. Telestream captioning products and Vantage can also do 436M.

17


L

Line 9-Line 9 refers to the location of the VANC closed cap-tioning data in an HD video signal. In the full raster, it appears it is the 9th line from the top of the frame.

Line 21-Line 21 refers to the location of the VBI closed caption-ing data in an NTSC 720x486 signal. It actually appears on lines 21 and 22 since line 22 is the second field of the closed captioning data.

Live Captioning –Live captioning is captioning process used for live web-casts or broadcasts to add captions to video on the fly. It requires several important tools. The first is a source of transcription such as a stenographer or speech rec-ognition software. Please note, getting speech recogni-tion software to usable levels of accuracy still requires an individual to operate it. The second item required for live captioning is a hardware encoder which will accept the video signal and the closed caption data and com-bine them for output. Last, you may need captioning software to tie these two things together (especially if you’re using speech recognition software).

M

MacCaption-MacCaption is Telestream’s closed captioning software for the Mac platform. MacCaption reads and writes all major captioning formats and supports the latest closed captioning workflows for Final Cut Pro. In addition to broadcast HD and SD video, MacCaption encodes captions for web formats like QuickTime, Flash, You-Tube, and Windows Media, and also tapeless workflows like MPEG-2 Transport Streams, DVCPRO HD and XDCAM.

.MCC –A .MCC is a MacCaption closed captioning file, and the only file format that supports both 608 and 708 (SD and HD) closed captioning, unlike .SCC, which only can encode 608 (SD) closed captions. This comprehensive format is being used by several companies for integra-tion into their closed captioning workflows.

MPEG-2-MPEG-2 can refer to not only a video codec, but also a container format. MPEG-2 can come in three different file types, Elementary Streams, Program Streams and Transport Streams. MPEG-2 files are becoming a more common form of video delivery because they allow a broadcaster to put them directly on their server instead of ingesting from tape. MacCaption can add captions to all three forms of MPEG-2 files.

N

Non-drop-Non-Drop timecode refers to a method of count-ing timecode in 29.97 fps video. It does not refer to actual frames of video being dropped that would affect video quality. Since 29.97 fps is not exactly 30 fps, when counting in non-drop, the timecode will get progressively further and further behind “real time.” For instance, after 2000 frames a drop-frame count-er will display 00:01:06:22, while a non-drop counter will display 00:01:06:20, but the content and real-time length of the video will be the same. The drop-frame counter is slightly ahead because it’s goes straight from 00:00:59:29 to 00:01:00:02. To prevent drift, it is important to timestamp in the correct timecode mode (or convert your captions’ timecode using Telestream software) when closed captioning a 29.97 fps program.

Non-Linear Editor-A non-linear editor (NLE) is a piece of software that allows you to edit video by moving pieces of it around in a timeline with multiple layers of video. This is in contrast to linear editing, which forces you to add one piece of video after another to tape in a linear fashion. Many NLEs support closed captioning for HD, SD, or both. Examples of non-linear editors are AVID, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Sony Vegas

NTSC-NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) is the analog television standard for North America, Japan, and some other parts of the world. NTSC supports closed captioning (608 only) on Line 21 of the video signal.

O

Open Captions-Open captions are captions that do not need to be turned on, they are always visible. This is opposed to closed captions which must be turned on with a decod-er. Open captions are actually part of the image itself, this is also known as burned-in captions.

18


P

Paint-on-Paint-on captions appear on the screen from left to right, one character at a time. This mode of displaying captions is uncommon except as the first caption of many commercial spots to reduce lag.

Pop-on-Pop-on captions appear on the screen one at a time, usually two or three lines at a once. This mode of displaying captions is typically used for pre-recorded television.

Program Stream-A data stream that multiplexes, or combines, a single video and a single audio stream together. Usually given the extension .mpg, and used for files to be played on a PC, some DVD authoring systems, and some tapeless distribution.

Q

RRoll-up-Roll-up captions appear from the bottom of the screen one line at a time, usually with only three lines visible at a time. This mode of displaying captions is typically used by live television like news broadcasts.

S

.SCC file-SCC stands for “Scenarist Closed Caption”, a file type developed by Sonic. SCC files have become a popu-lar standard for many different applications of closed captions. Some programs that use .scc files are Sonic Scenarist, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Com-pressor.

Shadow Speaker-When using speech recognition software, a shadow speaker is a person who repeats everything said in a program into a microphone so that the speech recogni-tion software only has to interpret that shadow speak-er’s voice and not the multiple voices in the program. After training the software (about 15 minutes), it can achieve accuracy rates up to 90-95% in a clean audio environment.

SMPTE Timed Text 2052-The W3C published a Timed Text Markup Language (TTML) specification that covers timed text on the Web. SMPTE created additional metadata structures for use in TTML and developed a profile of TTML called SMPTE-TT. The DECE incorporated the SMPTE Timed Text in its UltraViolet Common File Format specification. This file format is supported by both MacCaption and CaptionMaker software including the raw 608 data.

Softel –A Windows based captioning company that makes Swift software for captioning preparation. Also, they make several other caption related products. They are currently owned by Beldenand are considered an enterprise product with prices higher than MacCaption or CaptionMaker.

Speech Recognition-Speech recognition software takes spoken word and translates it into text. State of the art speech recognition technology can only achieve 60-80% accuracy without the use of a shadow speaker. Software that uses a shadow speaker can achieve up to 90-95% accuracy, but is limited to recognizing one person’s voice at a time and needs to be used in a clean audio environ-ment.

Standard Definition (SD)-Standard Definition is a television standard with (typ-ically) 480 lines in the video signal (486 when NTSC). Closed captioning for SD is sometimes called Line 21 and is codified under the 608 standard.

Stenographer-A stenographer is a person who can transcribe video from audio on the fly (like a court reporter). Stenogra-phers can dial in to a hardware encoder remotely over a phone line so that closed captions can be added to a video signal for live broadcast. See also: Live Caption-ing.

Subtitling-Subtitling is text that appears on screen that normally only gives information about spokendialogue . With the exception of DVD and Blu-ray, subtitles cannot be turned off, but are burned into the image.

Swift Create –Softel captioning software comparable to our Caption-Maker/MacCaption Pro offering.

19


T

Transport Stream-A data stream that multiplexes, or combines, multiple video and audio streams together with other metadata. Usually given the extension .ts, .m2t, or .m2ts, and used for DTV broadcast, VOD, tapeless delivery, and other systems where multiple channels are mixed together.

U

UVault –CDN internet streaming service that can receive live text stream from CaptionMaker software and marry the text with video in the cloud for live video HLS streaming.

V

VANC-VANC stands for “Vertical Ancillary data space” and refers to the data stored on Line 9 in HD video (outside the display area) that holds the 708 closed captioning data while it is going over an HD-SDI signal or on an HD tape format. VANC data appears on only the part of Line 9 towards the left, but VANC data can also carry different information, like V-chip data.

VBI-VBI stands for “Vertical Blanking Interval” and is the time between the last line or field drawn in a video frame and the first line or field of the next frame. This is usually measured with lines; in NTSC there are 40 lines for VBI. Closed Captioning data for NTSC video is stored on Line 21 of the VBI.

W

WebVTT Internet CC File – WebVTT is a standard for subtitles, captions, and relat-ed timed metadata. A web media text track comprises a set of cues, each of which has an optional identifier, timestamp, optional settings, and the actual payload text. The cues are listed in a dedicated WebVTT file (having the .vtt file extension by convention) associated with a web media file using the src and kind attributes of the HTML5 track element.

X

Y

YouTube Captions-Google’s online video hosting service which supports a variety of closed caption files including but not limited to WebVTT, .SCC, and SMPTE TT 2052. When upload-ing an MPEG-2 with A/53 captions, YouTube will also extract closed captions that can be viewed by the end user using the YouTube player CC button.

Z

Zeitanker-Makers of Annotation Edit subtitling software for Mac OSX. This software is designed for subtitling for Eu-ropean STL EBU, Teletext, and PAC. They have added support for U.S. captioning recently but do not support the full 608 or 708 specifications. This product has a price of 245 Euros.

20


www.telestream.net | [email protected] | tel +1 530 470 1300

Specifications subject to change without notice. Copyright © 2014 Telestream, Inc. Telestream, CaptionMaker, Episode, Flip4Mac, FlipFactory, Flip Player, Lightspeed, ScreenFlow, Vantage, Wirecast, GraphicsFactory, MetaFlip, MotionResolve, and Split-and-Stitch are registered trademarks and Pipeline, MacCaption, e-Captioning, and Switch are trademarks of Telestream, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. March 2014

sales overview: telestream captioning products 2014essentially, many existing vantage users ask...

Documents