Thursday, November 5, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[This Is Kirk!]

The polar vortex, pineapple express, naming winter storms. For some reason every weather phenomenon has to have a name nowadays.

2nd marriage, 2011: several friends and family asked (paraphrasing) “aren’t you worried about the May Gray?”

How San Diego. No one is worried the wedding could get rained out. Instead they're worried it might be overcast!

[lorimendenhall]

we have so little "weather" here in SoCal people have to make up silly names for practically nonexistent phenomena. I agree with the call of shenanigans... May is always super sunny! Truly though, it's not a stretch to figure what they were going for with that answer. and btw, I literally lived next to Flushing Meadow Park for the first 6 years of my life until we "moved on up" to the suburbs.

[trainman]

For a taped show like Jeopardy! they obviously don't need to caption in real time, but I also have a feeling they aren't paying the captioner enough to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb, either. My guess is the captioner captions the entire show in real time first and then goes back and checks any spellings they weren't sure about.

This debate would best be settled by trainman. He revealed in a somewhat recent Jeopardy Live Panel (that dealt with Matt's infamous $5/$5000 DD wager) that not only is/was he a closed captioner, but he also did closed captioning for J! for a time and can probably settle this once and for all.

Paging trainman ...

Yes, I'm interested to know. My wife used to caption, but she only did live shows and prerecorded shows may be a totally different ballgame.

If I was able to do live captioning, I would have made a lot more money than I did working on prerecorded captions! (Using the stenographic keyboard is a special skill.) You are correct that although prerecorded captions are supposed to be 100% correct, the captioners aren't necessarily able to meet that standard -- although it's probably less due to how much the captioners are getting paid than the amount of time pressure they're under.

When I worked, I would go caption-by-caption, placing and timing them as I went -- but I did have co-workers who would basically transcribe the entire show first and only then go back and place and time each one.

When I was working on J! captions (circa 2000-2002), we got absolutely no supplemental material from the J! producers. "Wheel of Fortune" at least sent us the contestants' full names, but that's not necessary for J!, which has them on-screen at the beginning of the show.

[This Is Kirk!]

If I was able to do live captioning, I would have made a lot more money than I did working on prerecorded captions! (Using the stenographic keyboard is a special skill.)

It certainly is. My wife thought captioning would be great. Pretty good pay, she could work from home, etc. After a while she realized she missed all the social interaction she got as a court reporter, so she ditched the captioning and started her own court reporting firm.

[Johnblue]

Is it just not known outside of NY/NJ that Forest Hills = Queens? It's the home of Spider-Man!

As the clue indicated, the time capsule from the 1939 World's Fair is in Flushing Meadows, not Forest Hills.

I got it from Fran Drescher's sitcom, The Nanny. I only saw a handful of episodes and remember almost nothing from it. But somehow the first two lines of the theme song took up residence in my head and never left. "She was working in a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens,/ Til her boyfriend kicked her out in one of those crushing scenes".

That's how I got it, too. I'm usually lost when a J! clue asks for a New York City borough.

When I went to NYC for MSQ back in 2013, I ended up with a Saturday to kill and decided to head to Flushing Meadows to watch the U.S. Open. I was able to get in for just a few bucks (<$25), which gave me access to everything but Arthur Ashe Stadium. I'm only a casual tennis fan, but it was one of the most fun sporting experiences I've ever had. From the action on the ancillary courts--quadriplegic tennis will blow your mind!--to the kids' experiences to the vendor booths to watching the main action on the Jumbotron with the plebes, the whole day was amazing. I even got to sit with Michael Chang's family and watch him and Todd Martin take on the McEnroe brothers in an exhibition doubles match. If you ever have the chance to go, even if you care not a whit about sports, do it. You will not regret it.

I went for 12 years straight starting a week before 9/11, some years going three times. I've seen all the current players up close. I never paid only $25 though!

[Robert K S]

The web site of the captioning company has a list of FCC Best Practices they adhere to. The standards require the show to "[p]rovide relevant prep materials, including names of guests, show rundowns, song lyrics, etc." and "[e]nsure that prerecorded shows are captioned by offline captioners, with offline workflow, with some exceptions." The standards further require the captioning company to "[c]reate metrics to assess accuracy, synchronicity, completeness, and on-screen placement of real-time captions" and "[s]creen, train and periodically evaluate all captioners," among other things. They also have a blog that details more of their efforts to meet the FCC standards.

[opusthepenguin]

The web site of the captioning company has a list of FCC Best Practices they adhere to. The standards require the show to "[p]rovide relevant prep materials, including names of guests, show rundowns, song lyrics, etc." and "[e]nsure that prerecorded shows are captioned by offline captioners, with offline workflow, with some exceptions." The standards further require the captioning company to "[c]reate metrics to assess accuracy, synchronicity, completeness, and on-screen placement of real-time captions" and "[s]creen, train and periodically evaluate all captioners," among other things. They also have a blog that details more of their efforts to meet the FCC standards.

I wonder who owns the rights to the captions. I've bought TV shows on DVD that offer no English subtitle option. This peeves me because I assume the DVD's producer had access to the CCs with which the show aired. But maybe I'm wrong and they can't legally include that text without purchasing the rights? Or maybe I'm wrong in assuming that it wouldn't take a lot of work to convert those CCs to subtitles for the DVD format. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that part though.

I don't normally need CCs/subtitles for shows in English. But occasionally they help. In a more general way, it irks me on behalf of the hearing impaired. Do we really need to expand the CC law to include other media? DVD producers can't just, you know, decide to do the right thing when it's easy to do?

[Robert K S]

For their part, the closed captioning company thinks they do a pretty good job.

Pauline Fuss
October 4 at 5:50pm
Why is Jeopardy close caption so terrible? I wish the people that write the close caption for these programs would turn off the sound and double check what they wrote. I can not understand how a pretaped program can have such terrible close caption
Like · Comment

VITAC
Hi, Pauline! Sorry to hear about this issue on the Jeopardy captioning. This show is prerecorded, and has prerecorded captions, so they should be verbatim and error-free! Commonly when there are issues with prerecorded captions, it is a transmission error on the part of a cable or satellite provider, or the broadcaster themselves (channel, or local affiliate). If it's not too much trouble, send an email to marketing@vitac.com and tell us some more specifics about the captions (misspellings, missing letters, etc.) who your cable/satellite provider is, and the area you're watching from. We hope we can help!
Like · Reply · October 5 at 10:11am

Pauline Fuss
I am watching Jeopardy from Lancaster County on WHP CBS 21 out of Harrisburg, PA and we have Direct TV. BUT, I have had Dish, Cable, Blue Ridge and this is a common problem. The Close Caption is Sloppy on most programs, worse on pre recorded ones. Regarding Jeopardy, words, mostly answers are missing I just finally got discussed with the who close caption business.
Like · Reply · October 5 at 12:56pm

VITAC
Hi, again Pauline! To clarify, you're saying that words are missing from the captioning in the answers on "Jeopardy," correct? We can look into this issue. Again, all prerecorded captioning is to be verbatim. And you said that you're seeing "sloppy" closed captioning on most programs, particularly prerecorded ones, so I'm wondering if in fact, it could be a transmission issue. You may want to do a reset of your DirecTV box and see if that fixes the problem. After the reset, if the problem persists, here is the captioning contact info for DirecTV: "For immediate closed-captioning issues, call 310-964-1010, fax 303-483-6266, or email ClosedCaptions@Directv.com. For formal inquiries, contact LeAnne Warren, Sr. Manager: ClosedCaptions@Directv.com, fax 303-483-6266, or mail to Closed Captions @ DIRECTV, P.O. Box 6550 Greenwood Village, CO 80155-6550" I hope that we can get this resolved!
Like · Reply · October 7 at 5:50pm

[bpmod]

For their part, the closed captioning company thinks they do a pretty good job.

They do a far better job than this Pauline Fuss does making her point.

Brian

[silverscreentest]

This Gothic classic was penned as part of a ghost story writing competition held in a mansion on Lake Geneva in 1816.

The answer could also conceivably be The Vampyre by John Polidori, unless you're splitting hairs on the definition of "classic". Interestingly, the vampire's name was also Lord Ruthven, although Lady Caroline Lamb's character was not a vampire.

The moon's craters were formed by meteorite impacts; the lava plains we call seas, by these events.

This isn't entirely true because some scientific theories believe some of those impacts were so strong, they pierced into the molten rock layers, thus creating volcanoes.

Do we have any Mexicans on the board? What I found on Wikipedia was that although Quintana Roo was once a territory, it was part of the state of Yucatan before it became a state in 1974.

[alietr]

If I was able to do live captioning, I would have made a lot more money than I did working on prerecorded captions! (Using the stenographic keyboard is a special skill.)

It certainly is. My wife thought captioning would be great. Pretty good pay, she could work from home, etc. After a while she realized she missed all the social interaction she got as a court reporter, so she ditched the captioning and started her own court reporting firm.

All of the times I've been in the presence of a stenographer (as an expert witness), I'm surprised that that is the kind of social interaction she missed. I think my favorite might have been the time two lawyers from Puerto Rico were yelling at each other in Spanish.

[bomtr]

Do we have any Mexicans on the board? What I found on Wikipedia was that although Quintana Roo was once a territory, it was part of the state of Yucatan before it became a state in 1974.

I'm not Mexican, but from history.com: (after the resolution of the caste wars) "from 1914 to 1934, Quintana Roo was integrated with Yucatan several times. It was finally made an independent entity by President Lazaro Cardenas"... Independent territory 1934 to 1974. Independent state thereafter.

[trainman]

I wonder who owns the rights to the captions. I've bought TV shows on DVD that offer no English subtitle option. This peeves me because I assume the DVD's producer had access to the CCs with which the show aired. But maybe I'm wrong and they can't legally include that text without purchasing the rights? Or maybe I'm wrong in assuming that it wouldn't take a lot of work to convert those CCs to subtitles for the DVD format. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that part though.

DVD producers are usually working from the original master copies of a TV show, which wouldn't have the captions on them -- the captions are applied to the "broadcast master."

Even if they did have a captioned master, they couldn't just duplicate it on DVD and keep the captions intact -- TV captions and DVD subtitles work differently.

The easiest/cheapest way to get the captions/English subtitles for DVD is to go back to the company that originally created the captions on the broadcast TV version, and have them "reformat" those captions for the DVD version. (That's something I worked on for a few shows, but it was more common to be "reformatting" old captions for reruns on another network or in syndication.)

[chmmr]

So I listen to this podcast which led me to say May Dismay instead of the correct answer. But I learned about Tycho Brahe and the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet from them, so they're okay.

[bpmod]

TV captions and DVD subtitles work differently.

I probably know more about DVD subtitles than I do about captions, but couldn't the captions still be embedded in the video stream of a DVD and turned on or off at the TV?

Brian

[opusthepenguin]

DVD producers are usually working from the original master copies of a TV show, which wouldn't have the captions on them -- the captions are applied to the "broadcast master."

Even if they did have a captioned master, they couldn't just duplicate it on DVD and keep the captions intact -- TV captions and DVD subtitles work differently.

The easiest/cheapest way to get the captions/English subtitles for DVD is to go back to the company that originally created the captions on the broadcast TV version, and have them "reformat" those captions for the DVD version. (That's something I worked on for a few shows, but it was more common to be "reformatting" old captions for reruns on another network or in syndication.)

Which is pretty easy, right? I mean, I've done it once or twice using freeware. Would they have to pay for the rights to the CC text?

[trainman]

TV captions and DVD subtitles work differently.

I probably know more about DVD subtitles than I do about captions, but couldn't the captions still be embedded in the video stream of a DVD and turned on or off at the TV?

I believe they could put Line 21 captions on a DVD, but digital connections (HDMI and the like) don't pass through Line 21 captions.

Would they have to pay for the rights to the CC text?

I don't believe they would have to pay anything other than what the captioning company would charge to create a new caption file that's ready to be encoded onto the DVD master.

[This Is Kirk!]

If I was able to do live captioning, I would have made a lot more money than I did working on prerecorded captions! (Using the stenographic keyboard is a special skill.)

It certainly is. My wife thought captioning would be great. Pretty good pay, she could work from home, etc. After a while she realized she missed all the social interaction she got as a court reporter, so she ditched the captioning and started her own court reporting firm.

All of the times I've been in the presence of a stenographer (as an expert witness), I'm surprised that that is the kind of social interaction she missed. I think my favorite might have been the time two lawyers from Puerto Rico were yelling at each other in Spanish.

Yeah, I'm sure she didn't miss that kind of thing. As a free-lancer she tended to work for the same attorneys over and over and made some good friendships with the attorneys, paralegals, etc.

[Euphonium]

Got a kick out of "May Gray...Inspector Maigret."

Mike looked soooooooooooooo much like a young-ish Brad Rutter. For a second I thought it was him and was extremely confused.

How many of you boardies got "May gray" even though you'd never heard it before?

I worked it out just in the nick of time what it had to be.

[triviawayne]

Not to bump a thread we're obviously done with, but I figure this is the best place.

It may have gone unnoticed, but 11/5/15 clues are not in the archive.