FCC Releases Disability Advisory Committee Captioning Report

The FCC released its Disability Advisory Committee's report on best practices for sending and receiving captioning files so captioning associated with full-length programming remains available regardless of the distribution method. Members discussed the report at length before it was approved two weeks ago (see 2211010062). “The captioning ecosystem for video programming online is large and complex,” the Tuesday report says: “Captions are initially created by a content creator, owner, or provider, either internally or through a vendor. They are sidecar components to a video program and may be delivered as a file embedded in the media container, or may be streamed alongside the video, such as for most online program delivery, including live streams. After creation, the captions may be converted to various formats … as required by the content distributor or to suit the method (or platform) of distribution.” Among its recommendations for the FCC are “encouraging efforts by developers, vendors, and providers of professional and amateur video editing, production, and distribution tools to ensure that tools are available to creators to promote the availability and utility of captions in their videos” and “educating video creators at all levels about the importance of treating captioning as an integral part of the creative process.”