Saturday, June 27, 2009

TV moving to the internet. Will closed captioning move too?

G'day Everyone.
A few weeks ago, when I spoke back on June 12th about TV stations that were ending the age of the analog signals and making the dramatic switch to the digital age, I didn't think of how serious things would get. Jamie Berke of Deafness.about.com and Robert Goodwin of RSGeo-oo7, who have been sharing with me about the netflix battle over closed captions on the 'net, recently shared with me something much more seriously important.

First, Jamie has posted on her blog : http://deafness.about.com/b/ about the TV situation.
Then following her link on to the CNN article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/biztech/06/26/wired.tv.everywhere/index.html

At first, I'm going: "it's just another dumb tech article". Then it hits me like a ton of Al Gores that says "I'm the father of the 'net!". Just because TV went digital a few weeks ago, it shouldn't be jumping to the Internet that fast. But alas! It seems like it's going to! Would our very computers that we use for email and web page surfing become our TV site as well?
I've seen some advertisements of the FREE WEB TV stuff. I just wasn't thinking that TV would jump from cable to Internet. But when you think of the possibilities of the unlimited amount of TV channels on 'net (not counting porn sites as well), the results can be astounding.

However, if the netflix battle has served us anything, it asks us a very important question. Will there be closed captioning if TV was to jump from cable to the Internet permanently? I'm hope that the FCC will rule on that quickly as possible. But like Jamie and Robert told me, they are establishing a new group on Facebook.com called Closed Captioning 2. I believe the issues and concerns are very important.

Update: It is Caption Action 2, not Closed Captioning 2. Caption Action 2 is under
Causes on Facebook. I was made aware of the correct title. Please use that info when looking for causes to join in face book that is Caption Action 2. Thank you.

But my question is Should TV jump from cable to the Internet? I'd say NO. How should the deaf community react, especially if there were no captions on the TV Internet?
I'd like to hear your reactions. For now, I would plead with FCC to rule that TV should remain where it has been for many years, on the cable system.

Semper FI.

2 comments:

RLM said...

Good point about us should not rush to embrace the TV to Internet for tv viewing without full captioning abilities!

Thats what Bill Gates envisioned the future of TV thru the use of Internet. Welcome to the Brave New World!

RLM

Robert G said...

Hello, Aldous Huxley!

I've not read it yet, but a classic book.