Closed Captioning Terminology

Author's note: This article was written for Caligrams (the magazine of the California Court Reporters Association) in 1992, and it has been reprinted (usually without my permission) all over the Web and in at least one other court reporting magazine. The Closed Captioning Handbook, published in 2004, has a much more detailed and up-to-date glossary of captioning and broadcast terminology.

AA

Average Audience - used for measuring TV viewership

AARP

American Association of Retired Persons

ABES

Association for Broadcast Engineering Standards

ADA

Americans with Disabilities Act

ADI

Area of Dominant Influence

AEA

Actors Equity Association

AEA

American Electronics Association

AFTRA

American Federation of Television & Radio Artists

AITS

Association of Independent Television Stations

ALDA

Association of Late Deafened Adults

ASL

American Sign Language

Basys

A newsroom computer system

BNC

Bayonet Connector (for coaxial cable)

Caption 21

Script-based captioning system from Basys

CAPtivator Online

Realtime (live) captioning software from Cheetah Systems

CAPtivator Offline

Post-production captioning software from Cheetah Systems

CATV

Cable Television (originally Community Antenna TV)

CBC

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

CC

Closed-Captioned

CCE/PC

Closed-Caption Encoder for the PC (card made by SoftTouch)

CE

Chief Engineer (Chief Station operator)

Cheetah Systems

Manufacturer of captioning software & systems

CHUT

Cable Households Using Television

decoder

A device that displays closed captions "hidden" in the VBI

DTV

Digital Television

EDTV

Extended Definition Television

EEG

Manufacturer of professional caption encoders/decoders

encoder

A device that "hides" captions in the VBI

ENG

Electronic News Gathering

FCC

Federal Communications Commission

FTC

Federal Trade Commission

Gallaudet

University for deaf and hearing impaired people, located in Washington, D.C.

HBI

Horizontal Blanking Interval

HDTV

High Definition Television

HOH

Hard-of-Hearing

LTC

Longitudinal Time Code (SMPTE timecode on audio track)

Line 21

Area of VBI containing closed-caption text

live-display

Hand-timing captions from a script during live programming

MOP

Minute of Program

MSA

Metro Survey Area

MSI

Market Statistics Inc.

MTBF

Mean Time Between Failure(s)

MTBR

Mean Time Between Repair(s)

NAB

National Association of Broadcasters

NAD

National Association for the Deaf (a national organization of and for deaf people)

NewStar

Newsroom computer system from Dynatech

NCI

National Captioning Institute (captioning company in VA)

NSI

Nielsen Station Index

O&O

Owned & Operated (a TV station owned by its network)

PA

Public Affairs

paint-on

Captions being "drawn" a letter at a time anywhere on screen

PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

PD

Program Director - Production Director

pop-on

Captions appearing all at once anywhere on TV screen

POTS

Plain Old Telephone Service - used to refer to ordinary phone lines (as opposed to dedicated lines or ISDN)

PPV

Pay per View

PSA

Public Service Announcement

RCA connector

Connector used for home video and audio equipment

realtime

Captions produced using a stenocaptioner

RGB

Red-Green-Blue (for video signals on three wires)

RGB/Sync

Red-Green-Blue with synchronization signal (four wire video)

roll-up

two- to four-line captions scrolling on screen

RTNDA

Radio & Television News Directors Association

SAP

Second Audio Program on TV subcarrier

SBE

Society of Broadcast Engineers

SCTE

Society of Cable Television Engineers

SECAM

Sequential Coleur Avec Memoire (French/Russian Color TV standard)

SHHH

Self Help for Hard of Hea ring People (a national organization of and for deaf and hard-of-hearing people)

SMPTE

Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers

SMSA

Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area

SoftTouch

Manufacturer of plug-in caption encoders for personal computers

SVHS

Super VHS - a 1/2" videotape format

TBC

Time Base Corrector (for "cleaning up" video signal)

TDCA

Television Decoder Circuitry Act

TDD

Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (used as synonym for TTY)

TeleCaption

Home caption decoder manufactured by NCI

Teletext

Captioning standard used in UK & parts of Europe

timecode

Unique time identifier "stamped" on each frame of video

TT

Text Telephone (obsolete synonym for TTY - not used)

TTY

Teletypewriter (see a lso TDD), device used with or in place of a telephone to allow communication by typing over POTS lines

U-Matic

A 3/4" videotape format

VBI

Vertical Blanking Interval - the "blank" lines of video picture between the bottom of one frame and the top of the next

VCR

Video Cassette Recorder

VITC

Vertical Interval Time Code

VPS

Viewers per Set

VPVH

Viewer per Viewing Household

VR-100

Home caption decoder from NCI with new FCC 1993 standards

VTR

Video Tape Recorder