Subtitles

So a while back I wrote to the BBC about subtitling. I was probably unclear, but I asked "do you get a script to work from, or do you just listen, or run it through a machine or something?" and I was asking about Torchwood. The reply I got was:

Subtitles are produced differently for live and for pre-recorded programmes. For live programmes, like the news, the BBC uses a team of subtitlers and stenographers. Any material which we can obtain in advance, such as written news links or news reports on VHS tape, is used to prepare subtitles. These are then sent out live as the programme goes out on air.

Genuinely live programmes/reports, or those which are completed very close to transmission and for which no material is available beforehand, are mainly produced by a technique known as broadcast stenography or stenocaptioning. Stenography is a type of machine-written shorthand based on phonetics, as used in courtrooms. BBC stenocaptioners employ the same technique, with the difference that the shorthand outline is translated by computer and transmitted instantly onto air. We still subtitle most of our live output using stenographers, but as stenographers are in short supply, in the last few years we have begun to use speech recognition technology to expand the areas we can cover with live subtitling. We now use speech recognition to live subtitle most sporting events. A speech subtitler listens to the commentary and "respeaks" it into software which recognises the speech and translates it into subtitles.

Pre-recorded programmes can be subtitled days or weeks in advance, depending on when the programme is delivered. For pre-recorded
programmes, the subtitles are stored on a computer file which is sent to the transmission area and played out with the programme.


Which is interesting, but... er, where did they answer the question? I mean, it says they're on a computer file to be sent out, but it doesn't says if they're working from a script to put them in. They say they get all the news stuff they can in advance, so it seems likely, but there's the if they can bit, which were part of what I was asking.


BBC subtitles remain superior to other channels. Channel 4 is still giving me garbage and missed lines, and FilmFour+1 is always out of synch rather badly. Is all very well their site saying it is a reception problem but it do remain a problem.


The existence of subtitles remains cool.

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well that was 4 hours that vanished without trace.
I went back under teh duvet cause it's cold in here.

oops.

Had a dream where Richie Ryan was being followed around by a version of him that dressed and acted like the Richie we first met but looked like Richie would if he'd aged naturally. Which looked *really* skanky. I mean, I was spared the green jacket, but even without that, season 1 Richie was not a snappy dresser. And being all slouchy and teenaged while looking in his thirties (and hard worn thirties at that) is just beyond sad.

So it was all these rejected pieces of his old self, a bit portrait in the attic, very messed up.

I'd try and make a story with it, but it would kind of necessitate Richie going mad, to have that follow him around. And if it were any of the older Immortals they'd be rather unrecogniseable - 5000 year old humans tend to be very, very corpsified. Plus it loses some of the zing to have a teenager from an age we don't recognise. And the others were a bit older when they first died anyway.

I guess I'll file it for use with other kind of immortal characters.

Followed around by a version that looks their calendar age yet acts their apparent age. Nasty.

Torchwood: 1-08: They Keep Killing

I'm back in love again.
That brought the dark, the creepy, the twisty, and the funny. And ended with pure slashbait. There is no bad here.
Plenty of room for fanfiction, but no bad.

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Okay, I give up... coherent review will have to wait for later.
Sitting here with giant grin on face.
Dead of squee.

heh
Death by Torchwood ;-)

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further thought will have to wait for more watching.
The last two eps I didn't want to download. This one I'm happily waiting for.

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http://www.torchwood.org.uk/html/
is made of win

I liked the IM bit hidden in the Suzie section

also the bit about the Torchwood Librarian

... there's also an instruction booklet that ends with "It is easiest if they strap you to a bed, if one is handy, gag you, and then lock the door."

There's also more from the archives of Torchwood 1... who get darker every time we read more.