How subtitles are made for TV

Finally …. captions on ITV player!

Today, ITV announced they are now subtitling online programming on ITV Player. This has been a very long time coming. They say subtitling is currently available for programmes such as Emmerdale and Coronation Street; however they will try to have subtitles available for 70% of catch-up content.

A task force has been created to drive forward and constantly review on-site accessibility and specifications. This is great news for accessibility – benefiting hard of hearing and deaf people, and those for whom English is not their first language.

I’m particularly pleased as I’ve just treated myself to a 50″ plasma TV … but I can’t tune it properly! Can’t figure out the wires either! So at the moment I’m receiving BBC1, BBC2, and BBC News. I checked out ITV Player on my laptop yesterday, only to discover it has no captions. At All. Grrr. So this is a welcome piece of news. I’ve just checked it out and, like the BBC iPlayer, you click on the S button in the bottom right corner to play the subtitles.

If you would like to have any information from ITV provided in a different format for accessbility reasons, you can contact ITV on 08448 814 150 or email itv.comsupport@itv.com and they will happily discuss your requirements and endeavour to provide you with suitable alternatives.

Photo: Billy 😉

See Hear blog

See Hear have a new blog. You can see it HERE.

Watch TV on your laptop

Bookmark this link [ BBC iPLAYER – SIGN ZONE ] which shows repeats of programmes with BSL and / or captions. I love it!

Subtitling on digital TV channels

Subtitling on all digital TV channels

People who are deaf and hard of hearing do not have a wide range of choice what to watch on digital TV as only a selected few programmes are subtitled. All we are asking for is to make digital TV companies subtitle 100% of programmes to give us the choice to watch what we want, hearing people take this for granted.

The deadline is 20 February 2008. Sign the petition here.