TWC Video Problems

[Frank2]

My local area cable company feed of TWC no longer has "Line 21" closed captioning - this outage started when TWC began broadcasting from their new HD studio last May...

Since then, I've contacted TWC and Comcast a number of times, however, the problem continues to go unresolved, however, I've discovered that the problem is not isolated to my house - my employer's HD TV (in the same Comcast service area as my residence) is also without closed captioning on that same channel, and, one of the Comcast customer service folks also told me that she could see that the TWC signal is also without captioning on their end...

When speaking with TWC, they insist that the signal is being transmitted with closed captioning (I believe they use VITAC in Pitttsburgh), so, the problem seems more isolated to the local cable company, however...

Can you please take a minute to tell me if your local TWC programming includes closed captioning - it would help me when contacting TWC or Comcast in the near future...

My thinking is that if other viewers (in other states) also mention this problem, TWC will be more motivated to do something...

I use closed captioning frequently, and, would like to see this problem resolved before I'm any older and grayer...

P.S. Our local ION TV channel also lost it's captioning about 2 months ago, however, after contacting ION, they were good enough to contact Comcast directly (unlike TWC), and, as it turned out, Comcast had entered the wrong Aspect Ratio for their channel - once the correct AR adjustments were made, the captioning returned...

I've explained this to TWC, and, they agree that perhaps it's the problem, but, the problem continues...

Thanks

Frank

[Ed Mahmoud]

Sometimes in the gym when on the stationary bike, they have CNN or CNBC on, no sound, closed captioning, and, well, I'm not claiming I could type any better at that speed, but sometimes it is almost impossible to follow the news because of the typos and mangled sentences.


Don't know if TWC is any better, I'd think any unscripted TV would have that problem.

[Frank2]

Hi Ed,

Yes, I agree (especially with some OCM's who like to go, pardon the pun, "off-topic"), but, with my hearing (or lack of) it helps when using the CC, though more and more channels are using voice recognition instead of a live transcriber (much cheaper), but, the problem is that the VR doesn't recognize a person's voice inflections, and, sometimes, a word will be captioned that is totally out of bounds...

Last week, when watching a movie, someone was talking about a deer, but, the captioning displayed "dear", so, the sentence didn't make sense...

However, I've begun to study the AP Style Manual (used by people in the news media), and, that doesn't make sense, either, since it often violates laws of good grammar...

LOL

Thanks,

Frank

[vbhoutex]

Captioning working fine on TWC here in Houston with Comcast as the provider.

[Frank2]

Closed Captioning of TWC returned to this Comcast service area on 12/1 (during the "A&B" segment - wouldn't you know it - the one TWC show that I don't like, but, it was good to be able to read what "Silly Stephanie" was saying, anyway...)

It was a long, arduous journey - after many calls to TWC and Comcast, I finally called TWC's caption provider (VITAC) in Pittsburgh, and, they were kind enough to put me in touch with someone at NBC in New York (by e-mail), who dealt with Comcast directly, and, within a day the issue was resolved - it took a long time to get the problem resolved, but, was worth the effort!

The woman at VITAC was also greatful to discover out that the outage might be due to an Aspect Ratio issue with the cable provider - apparently, from what customer service at ION Televison told me a few months ago after a similar complaint, the HD signal causes adjustments to be made to the Aspect Ratio settings in order to receive the Line 21 closed captioning, so, the person at VITAC said that the Aspect Ratio problem in this case would be suggested to customers when it comes to resolving other Closed Captioning outage complaints they receive from other parts of the country (from what she told me, this was not previously considered as the cause of an outage), so, it felt good to think that my complaint might help others, if only indirectly...

Frank

[TexasStooge]

Captioning working fine here in Irving, TX. It was once under Comcast's control, but since August 2006 it was taken over by Time Warner Cable.

[Dionne]

No closed captioning here, nor do we have local on the 8's. We're DirecTV. We had both when we were still cable. It has something to do with what they call "end user agreement"......I have no idea what that means. I want to discontinue DirecTV......but the wife loves the HGTV (home & garden).

[Frank2]

Well, the captioning outage was resolved two weeks ago, but, about one week ago there appeared a pencil-thin diagonal line from the upper right of the screen to the lower left corner - I've seen that happen before, when TV stations are working on their transmitters (I have a working knowledge of that sort of thing)...

Again, the problem is not just at my house (since I've seen the same line on my employer's cable TWC channel), so, once again had to call TWC and they opened another trouble ticket...

The TWC (contract) technician seemed to think it might be some bad equipment at the cable head (as they call it), but, it's been one week and it's still there (it makes Jim Cantore look like he has one strand of hair - LOL)...

If anyone has the same line across their screen, can you please let me know here?

Thanks

[vbhoutex]

No closed captioning here, nor do we have local on the 8's. We're DirecTV. We had both when we were still cable. It has something to do with what they call "end user agreement"......I have no idea what that means. I want to discontinue DirecTV......but the wife loves the HGTV (home & garden).

I don't know who your cable provider is but we have Comcast and we have HGTV.