To learn more about FileCatalyst, visit filecatalyst.com.

• All prerecorded programs must have CC by August 2012.
• All live programs must have CC by February 2013.
• All new prerecorded programs must have CC by August 2013.
• All archived programs must have CC by February 2014.

Don’t wait until the last minute! Call Aberdeen today to learn more about your closed captioning options.

NRB was a great chance to meet producers with new programs who are eager to get the ball rolling and get these shows on the air. Thousands of people attended NRB this year and the overall feel was one of optimism and excitement for the rapid growth of the religious broadcasting industry. It was great to meet with many of our existing clients (MXTV, Burchfield Ministries, Urban Alternative, 4B Media, KTBN, Travel with Spirit, WLMB, NRB Network, Samaritan’s Purse, Grove Ave Baptist, BMC Farrell, Master Media, and Living on the Edge). It’s always nice to reconnect with people face-to face! NRB continues to be a surprise every year because it is not just about the products and services… it’s more about the people. It’s a welcome reminder that our business is personal and the relationships we have established with our clients are a huge factor as to why they continue doing business with Aberdeen.

Here’s a shot of our booth this year:

Whether ‘tis more numbing in the mind to suffer the mastery of captioning, language and file delivery service options or to align them with the plethora of automation, coding, and on-air server systems that are installed at the nearly 8,000 TV stations in the country (not to mention worldwide).  The real challenge, surprisingly, not the process of becoming an authority of systems and workflows the world over, but rather the installation of not a workflow, but of confidence in the producer or engineer’s mind.

Thus the science makes cowards of us all.  But surely our company’s history evokes bravery.  Why should I tremble when we were able to lower our producers from the tower by allowing them to master a captioned tape from there NLEs.  Who of us here at Aberdeen could forget how we slayed the Sony XDCAM captioning beast on the floor of NAB in Las Vegas.  Certainly, our next adventure shall be our most exciting as we are in the midst of turning “can’t” into “can” and “doing” into “done.”  In sales guy terms, our stuff just works and works in a way that no one else’s stuff works.  Now how do I get a producer or engineer on the other end of the phone or video chat to buy into that, especially in when talking about dropping a closed captioned, broadcast ready file (better quality mind you) onto a server in a preferred format.  That must be a sheer flight of fancy and the stuff of make believe.

Ahh, but believe they will.  Not at first though.  The truth must be polished like a pearl for the digital age has not brought clarity and simplicity, but rather muck and mire.  “Clear as mud” is a common phrase uttered by the experts in this high-tech, high-demand world of television broadcasting, webcasting and mobile transmission.  Thank goodness for the community of producers, engineers and all others who muscle through technology trends and paradigm shifts together with Aberdeen.  If not for this technology community, or as I prefer, “techmunity” (okay, I admit, it sounds a little more like technology mutiny) there would be little in the way of progress, or more frightening still, no collective commiseration.  What to do if we had to muscle through technology breakthroughs without the pleasure of forging new friendships alongside new state-of-the-just-work-already solutions.

And enterprises of great pitch and moments like these is what being a sales engineer is all about.

This blog was written by By Steve Holmes (with Shakespeare), Sales Engineer for Aberdeen.

If you are interested in buying into what Steve is selling or would like to know more about it, or if you would just like a laugh with this funny guy, he can be reached at 800-688-6621 or info@abercap.com

Needless to say, the many misconceptions and myths that I had about what CC is and how it works have now been completely debunked.

Below are the top five things I was surprised to learn:

1. It’s an FCC requirement

I used to think that it was optional and TV stations did it just out of concern for the deaf and hard of hearing, so I thought I might come across a TV show with CC and another without. It turns out that the FCC is quite serious about this and requires it in all broadcast TV programming. So with a few exceptions, all television programming we come across on a daily basis will have closed captions.

I was impressed to learn that over 31% of Americans uses closed captions. Although the FCC doesn’t have a minimum accuracy rate, Aberdeen Captioning guarantees at least 98% accuracy in its captioning, even up to 100% if the client so desires.

2. Actual people have to do it

I may sound a bit ignorant, but at first I thought the TV did it all by itself. That somehow, it used super-accurate speech recognition software, it was smart enough to organize the text in a clear way and to move captions around in order to clear lower third graphics while at the same time it would avoid covering the speaker’s mouth.

After all, we are in the 21^st century right? I was completely wrong.

There are actual real-life, air-breathing persons behind each caption we see on our TVs. This isn’t something automated that is done through smart PCs; rather, skillful people need to be involved each step of the way. I’m impressed at how Aberdeen has gone above and beyond to tap into the best resources in the captioning business to get the most talented people to create captions because, at the end of the day, it’s people who create the captions, not machines.

3. Closed Captions can be produced in six languages

Spanish being my first language, I think this is pretty awesome. When factoring such obvious things as that hearing impairment doesn’t just affect English speakers and that the latest 2010 US Census shows that the Hispanic or Latino population has grown by 43% since the year 2000, it is clear how being able to caption in various languages increases the reach a program may have.

Currently, the six languages in which closed captions can be produced are: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and Dutch.  Of course, when we talk about subtitles, the range of languages expands to many more. It really isn’t surprising that Aberdeen’s multi-language division has taken off.

4. Most producers are still using tapes

This was probably the single most impressive thing to me. After all, the last time I saw a Beta tape I was about 10 years old.

But here I am, coming in to Aberdeen for my first day on the job, and the first thing I noticed is a wall full of Betas and a recording rack filled to the brim with recording decks. Can you believe that in the age of Apple, Android, Wi-Fi TVs and all sorts of “smart” things there are hundreds or even thousands of tapes being shipped around every day from producers to TV stations?

Well, until recently, there weren’t any digital file-delivery systems accessible to small outfits allowing them to transfer long-form content with captions in a reliable way. Aberdeen Captioning has solved this problem with a new digital file-delivery service that delivers files to stations in their play server specs and that are ready for broadcast.

5. It’s not easy

The number one thing I’ve discovered is that closed captioning is not easy. I’ve discovered that there are so many variables from client to client and from station to station, that to excel in this business you really need to know your product.

Aberdeen has really strived to put together a group of dedicated people who have become experts in this area and are committed to the Word. I’m happy to be part of such a talented team.

This blog was written by Rolando Betancourt, Operations Administrator for Aberdeen Captioning.

When you post your video, opt to choose Flash video if possible since Flash is cross-platform so it can play both in Mac or Windows OS. It can also play in Android OS. This means Flash is not operating system specific and will guarantee a broader audience. Though Apple iOS is still not allowing Flash to work on their system, Android smartphones are still the reigning champions in the market share (50% Android OS vs 25% Apple OS, as per Nielsen Mobile Insights, March 2011). Therefore, your video is accessible through all desktop web applications as well as the majority of smartphone web applications.

Another advantage is that Flash video player is currently the only one that can display captions/subtitles in different languages. The other video players (Windows Media or Quicktime) cannot have a CC menu that can display options to choose your preferred CC language. Of course, you would need XML files for the captions/subtitles of each language. Some player, such as Ooyala, can incorporate all languages into 1 XML file.  Then the Flash video player skin need to be customized through some settings and coding in the Flash editing software to incorporate up to 100 different languages. Imagine that! Out of 6809 different languages in the world (as per Ethnologue organization), only 17 languages are spoken by 3.653 billion of people (that’s more than 60% of the world’s population). They are in order of number of speakers: Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi/Urdu, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, German, Punjabi, Javanese, French, Vietnamese, Korean, Turkish, and Italian.

Knowing the above exposure and what it can bring to your videos, it is a no brainer as to why you need to immediately start planning where to post your videos and how you can capture the market share easily. It’s just a few clicks and settings away in Flash Video Editing Software. Don’t lose the momentum and this opportunity!

Note about the author: Arif Kusuma is a Chief Technical Officer at Aberdeen Captioning. He has  Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Computer Information Systems, as well as a Master of Business Administration. He has a passionate drive for technology, both hardware and software, and like many people, loves to be the first to get the latest cutting-edge gadgets.