Announcing the VEE Awards and 2012's first quarter winners!

Behind every captioned program is a team of heroes making it possible. Our employees amaze us by performing over and beyond the expectations of their peers and manager.

We are excited to announce a recognition program for those employees! The VITAC Employee Excellence (VEE) Award Program allows employees to recognize and reward coworkers who perform over and beyond the expectations of their manager, peers and job description and represent VITAC's core values:  Trust, Teamwork, Transition and Accountability. The Selection Committee will announce three winners each quarter and we'll share portions of the announcement here.

Without further adieu, here are our first quarter VITAC Employee Excellence Awards winners:

Joan Gershwin - Remote Realtime Captioner
Joan was nominated for giving of her time "tirelessly, freely and very willingly" to a fellow captioner interested in captioning for VITAC.   As a mentor, she showed herself to be "genuinely excited, not just about her profession but about the company she worked for, VITAC."  She is "motivated, conscientious and totally unselfish" and "continues to be a tireless advocate for VITAC."

Matt Schuman - Realtime Sports Supervisor
Matt was nominated for his incredible ability to handle "anything that is thrown at him," a common occurrence in the sports captioning world.   He is "focused on solutions and results," and provides our customers with "quick and succinct responses" to their every need. "Like a top athlete, Matt makes it look easy to complete many different and complicated tasks at once, over and over again flawlessly."

Aletia Thingvoll - Customer Service Representative
Aletia was nominated for her role as a "team player and hard worker" for volunteering her services to another department.  As a former offline captioner now working in traffic, she recognized the need for her services and "offered to caption for Offline to help with productivity demands."  While she "continues to work 40+ hours in traffic," she helps offline by working weekend shifts.

Thanks to the VEE Award winners, nominees, and the rest of our staff. VITAC wouldn't be the same without you! The deadline for second quarter nominations are due June 30th, so keep your eye out for VITAC's Excellent Employees!

On January 13, 2012, the FCC released a Report and Order (R&O) which set new requirements for Internet Protocol (IP)-delivered programming. The R&O was published in the Federal Register on March 30, 2012, thus launching the compliance dates.

The original document is 111 pages and covers the rules, terms, and deadlines in great detail. Don't have time to read the entire report?

No worries! We designed a simple interactive flowchart to help!

Find out if (and when) your IP-delivered program is required to have captioning by answering simple "yes" and "no" questions. If you have any questions, contact us at css@vitac.com.

For more information:

Request a Quote
IP-captioning News
YouTube Captioning
Web Captioning
Printable Summary

The Summer 2012 Olympics are on the horizon! Our realtime department is captioning a handful of qualifying matches - a practice run before we caption the Games this summer. Among the qualifying events we're captioning are wrestling, men's volleyball and waterpolo.

Sports Coordinators Matt Shuman and Scott Harrington oversee the games and assign one realtime captioner to each event. Realtime Supervisors schedule a Production Coordinator to each game help the process. Before the match-up, the captioner and the Production Coordinator research the teams and players so they can add names to the dictionary. They also make sure terms specific to that sport are covered.

This weekend, we're captioning the men's volleyball tournament, where Team USA is the defending champion. If they beat out the competition, this will be the seventh consecutive time they qualified for the Olympics. It won't be easy, though. Seven other teams - Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba - are in the tournament. Cuba may be our biggest competition, they're ranked fifth in the world. The U.S. is sixth.

The Summer 2012 Olympics start on July 27. Catch the action (and our captions) on NBC.

Realtime Captioner
Est. 2007
Oviedo, FL

Did you have a nickname when you were growing up? 
I argued that my name was spelled K-A-T-B when I was little, so my sisters call me Katy-B or Beasley.

Were you involved in sports, music, drama or other extra-curricular activities?
I was very involved in softball, tumbling and cheerleading.  I love football! 

What is your fondest High School memory?
Probably cheering at football games.  I love the sounds of the band and the excitement in the air.  Currently, I'm living vicariously through my kids.  My two boys, 16 and 14, are both amazing players and my 11 year old daughter is quite the cheerleader.

Where is your favorite place in the world?
The beach.  My perfect day would be to sit in a chair on the beach watching the waves pass.

What do you do to decompress?
Spend time with my dogs.

What's your philosophy of life?
Appreciate those in your life.  You may not have them for long.

If you could have lunch with anyone in history (living or dead), who would it be?
My mom, one more time.  I have so many questions for her.

What do you like most about working at VITAC?
Probably the generosity of those who are willing to help out when needed.  Also, I can't believe how much I learn every day.

To learn more about Katy's interests, visit:

www.realtor.com

www.kirklands.com 

http://www.homedepot.com/

Saturday nights at VITAC are a tradition. Every week, our realtime department captions "Saturday Night Live," a process that takes alomost all night. We've captioned more than 366 episodes over the past eight years.

Ted Gilliland, a Senior Coordinator, is just one of the many Production Coordinators that oversees the process. Ted has been at VITAC since 2006. He handled daytime shows for over three years and started overseeing nighttime programming almost three years ago. Check out Ted's insight on how we caption SNL.

By: Ted Gilliland

The Breakdown:
Captioning SNL pretty much takes all night. We work on the captions from the time the dress rehearsal begins at 8pm until well after the show airs.

Before the show, one coordinator takes the lead. They connect to the dress rehearsal audio line and routes the audio to the realtime captioner. From there, the captioner writes the transcript of the rehearsal show. Luckily, the producers at SNL give us a rundown of the show. It gives us an idea of what's coming.

Next, the lead coordinator listens to the audio line and splits the segments into 11 individual video files. As soon as a segment wraps up, the lead coordinator sends the captioned file to a coordinator for prep. Everyone gets involved. This speeds up the prepping process since multiple coordinators can work on the show as it happens.

Once all of the segments are prepped, we receive an air rundown from the SNL producers. Segments often get cut from the live show, so this lets us know what will actually air. The lead coordinator arranges the prepped segments and sends the file to the realtime captioner.

Meanwhile, another coordinator sets up the show for air. They connect to NBC and the captioner and test to make sure the captions are working. As soon as everything is confirmed and tested, we start the captions at the top of the show. For the rest of the show, the realtime captioner uses the prepped and edited transcript from the dress rehearsal to caption the live show. SNL is constantly changing, so the captioner adds and removes content as the show progresses.

After the show, we have more work to do. We often revise the file for the Mountain and West Coast airing, which can take all night.

Ted's Favorite SNL Moments:
The "Napster Hearings" sketch is my all-time favorite. My favorite guest host on SNL is Conan O'Brien. Mike Myers also ranks up there, both as a host and a cast member. My favorite cast member would be a tie between Chris Farley and Phil Hartman. Oh, I should add Jimmy Fallon to that list.

I've worked with SNL for almost three years and seen a variety of episodes. None of them are particularly weird... It's a show where anything can happen, so you have to be ready as a viewer.

For more information, check out:

SNL's Facebook Page (take the timeline back to 1994!)
SNL's Webpage

TLC wraps up the second season of its hit series, "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" this Friday.

VITAC's offline team captioned TLC's "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding," a documentary series about Roma Gypsy and Irish Traveler weddings. Captioning each episode is a multi-step process.

First, one offline captioner transcribes the entire episode - even the sections that have subtitles! The Gypaccents can be hard to follow, so they'll listen to a segment several times before deciding on the audio.

Another offline captioner takes the transcription and times and places the captions. As they go through the episode, they make sure the captions appear with the audio and that they don't cover key visual components.

Finally, the captioned episode is reviewed by a third offline captioner. Our reviewers are the most senior captioners and know the ins and outs of grammar rules, caption placing and content. We finished this process five days before each episode aired on TLC!

Can get enough of "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding"? Check out TLC's new show, "My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding." The series has all of the outrageous outfits and family drama you love!

No worries, VITAC is here to help!

Read our comprehensive overview to get up to speed. Use our flowchart to see if and when your program will be affected. Check out our handout for IP-delivered captions here.

The Billboard Latin Music Awards airs on Telemundo Thursday, April 26 at 7pm/6c. Our talented realtime department is simultaneously creating English AND Spanish captions for live event.

In this case, (as the Billboard Latin Music Awards are mainly in Spanish) the Spanish captions are straightforward. Armed with their dictionary for the event and their stenograph, the Spanish Realtime Captioner will connect to the program with the help of a Production Coordinator. As they hear the audio, their fingers fly across the keys to produce the Spanish words onscreen.

Creating English captions takes an extra step. The English Realtime Captioner will have a dictionary prepared for the Billboard Latin Music Awards, but will have to rely on a translator to feed them the English translation. The translator will listen to the show's Spanish audio, and simultaneously translate it into English and dictate it to the captioner. The English captioner will use the translator's dialogue to create the English captions. We have this system down to an art -- we caption numerous Telemundo programs this way with a minimal delay.

So, when you watch the show tonight, turn on the captions and think of the VITAC team!

Over the past two weeks, Travis Copeland has traveled to 130 countries and visited some of the most remote areas in the world. How did he do this? Travis is an offline captioner at VITAC and captioned all 11 episodes of the original "Planet Earth" series for BBC America. With this job under his belt, Travis is our resident "Planet Earth" expert and this month's Unsung Hero.

There are a number of ways to celebrate Earth Day: plant a tree, go for a hike, dress up like your favorite animal, or read "The Giving Tree." This year, BBC America is offering another option, you can watch back-to-back episodes of the "Planet Earth" series!

There are two versions of the "Planet Earth" series; BBC America's original and Discovery's American one. Both were co-produced by a handful of our clients - BBC, Discovery Channel, NHK and BBC America - the series celebrates every corner of the Earth. Though the footage is the same, that's where the similarities end. Each has a completely different script and the original is narrated by David Attenborough while the American version is voiced by Sigourney Weaver.

VITAC is no stranger to the "Planet Earth" series. In 2007, our offline department captioned Discovery's version for DVD and TV-broadcast. This month, Travis Copeland our offline captioner and our newest wilderness expert, single-handedly captioned the original BBC series. Travis, who has worked at VITAC since November 2006, owns the BBC version (it was the first Blu-Ray he bought) and has seen a few of the American episodes.

Captioning the 11-episode series has been a two-week process. There are three or four versions for each episode and Travis captioned two for each one, which is over 22 hours of programming!

While Travis enjoyed captioning the series, the project wasn't without its obstacles. One challenge was placing the captions. "You don't want to cover up any of the important visuals, but when all the visuals are so beautiful, that sometimes comes down to a judgment call," explained Travis.

He also found that watching the darker scenes proved to be their own obstacles. He noted, "while nature is often stunningly beautiful, it can be ugly and dangerous. The series doesn't shy away from the more unpleasant aspects." His mantra soon became, "The Circle of Life."

Obstacles aside, Travis always kept an ear out for sound effects. "I try to convey the animal noises that are important, but I also take a minimalist approach. That is, I only note them when they are important to what's going on in the episode," he explained. "The harder part is actually naming the noises. Lots of bleating and howling, along with some singing and croaking and even a bird that makes clicking sounds. 'Calling' is a good default, but some Internet research was helpful."

At the end of the day, Travis' favorite part about captioning the series was, well, seeing it again. "Having seen the series before, it feels like reconnecting with an old friend - just like pulling out a book or a movie you haven't touched in a long time and falling in love with it all over again. The series is definitely one of my favorite, and highly acclaimed."

So now the question you've been waiting for - which version does Travis prefer?

Though Travis enjoys both series, he likes BBC's more. "Although I like Sigourney Weaver, you just can’t beat David Attenborough in my mind," said Travis. "He is an educated naturalist who has worked in the field, not just an actor hired to read a script."

The 39-hour marathon kicks off at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. "The Making of Planet Earth," a two-hour special that highlights the explorers and filmmakers that brought the series to life, will follow on Sunday, April 22 at 9pm/8c. (Fun fact: Our realtime department is captioning the special and our offline department will review, edit and format those captions for future broadcasts.)

Do you plan on watching the "Planet Earth" marathon? What is your favorite episode?

For more information, visit:

http://www.bbcamerica.com/planet-earth/about-the-show/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_sounds