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1.2.4 - Captions (Live) - AA

Intent​

Enable people who are deaf or hard of hearing to understand the auditory information in real-time synchronized media by providing captions.

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All of the points from the 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) - A apply to this criterion, except for open captions, as it is not likely the open captions will be present in the live media.

Real-time or Live media​

Real-time (or live-streamed) media include live news broadcasts, live sport commentaries, live webinars, live event broadcasts, and similar.

Techniques​

There are currently 3 techniques how to include the real-time captioning:

Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART)​

A stenographer writing the spoken words of the main speaker into text which is displayed on a projector.

Also called real-time stenography - a system that stenographers and others use to convert speech to text. A highly skilled operator writes the exact words spoken using a special keyboard to produce live captions.

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A stenographer is a person who makes a written verbatim record using a unique shortened writing style called "steno" on a steno machine.

Automated Voice Recognition Service Provided by a Shadow Speaker​

A shadow speaker repeating spoken words of the main speaker into a microphone where they get converted into text which is displayed on a projector.

A highly skilled speaker repeats spoken content into a microphone and specialized voice recognition software (trained to a specific person's voice) interprets the speech as text and facilitates text correction and customization.

Automated Speech Recognition Software​

Spoken words of the main speker are being processed by a sowftware in a laptop, and displayed on a projector.

An accurate software on a similar level as CART that automatically converts speech to text.

Examples​

Correct Usage​

The following example shows the correct usage or implementation of accessibility.

Example 1: CART​

See a showcase of the Communication Access Realtime Translation (video).

Incorrect Usage​

The following example shows incorrect usage or implementation of accessibility.

Example 1: No Live Captioning​

Not including live captions in live news broadcasts, sports commentaries, or webinars is excluding people who cannot hear the audio track.

Test Your Knowledge​

A stenographer repeats spoken content into a microphone so voice recognition software can interpret the speech as text. True or false?

False - a stenographer writes, whereas a shadow speaker speaks.

Synchronized media is audio or video content synchronized with another format for presenting information. True or false?

True - no catch here.