Bottomfeeder

Filling out forms this evening changing my address when SWMBO starts laughing................

on my TV Licence are 2 'tick boxes'

"If you do not have a National Insurance Number please tick box"


"If you are registered blind, please tick box"


WTF !!!!!!!

Not very 'PC' i know, but it 'tickled us

mart360

what the fcuck does having a NI number have to do with a tv licence..

another method of noseing by billy and the croneys

Jerome

I've seen on forms "If you cannot read English, please ask for help"

warrenm2

if you cant hear this fire alarm - please ring reception

NotoriousREV

Please let me know if you don't get this e-mail

Bottomfeeder

"If you have any queries about your bill either ring or write 0787 ........."


???

ajm

The registered blind bit is so you can make use of the oh so generous 50% off! I guess they reckon the sound alone is worth 50% of the TV experience!

Lum

At the risk of being serious in this thread, I have a friend who is registered blind, but still has a small amount of vision left. Sitting close enough to a large TV he is able to watch it fairly well.
You don't have to be totally blind to be registered blind. He does need a guide dog to get about though.

suprabeast

ooooh too serious there lum! tut tut....

Lum

Sorry,
To make this more like scoobynet, shall I say that the "I have no NI number field" is so that they can give you the licence for free if you're an illegal immigrant?

David Lock

In recreation park - sole words on board

"Do not throw stones at this notice"

Lum

Presumably to encourage the chavs to do exactly that so that they can kick them out for a reason?

AdiM

Until a couple of years ago, the discount for being blind was, wait for it ... £1.25.

The reason was that when the TV licence was first issued, it cost £12.50 and the discount was 10% but as the fee increased, the discount was left fixed. So, when the fee got to over a £100 you got a staggering 1% off !!!

David Lock

Was the Home Secretary involved??

Dracoro

If the blind get a discount, can the hard of hearing get a discount as well?

Lum

Probably not thanks to 888 on teletext

On which note have you ever watched 888 subtitles, they always lag behind on pre-recorded programs and on live programs they're really funny as they use some kind of predictive-text-like system that sometimes writes complete garbage.

hedgehog

The people who produce subtitles on live programmes actually do a very good job when you think about it. They are listening to the audio and then either typing it or speaking it into a subtitling system. While this might sound like a trivial task you should give it a try, it isn't easy. In fact they generally only do 15 minutes at a time as it is such intensive work.

Usually there are either stenographers who type the words. They will have a dictionary of their own "words" with short cuts to these words but, as you say, it can go wrong as much of it is done phonetically. There is also a system whereby the subtitles are "spoken" by the subtitling person but as you will be aware voice recognition is not, yet, a perfect sicence and so it does go wrong.

It isn't quite as simple as saying every word in the programme either as the subtitle person has to consider what might fit on the screen, what the system might cope with and other similar judgements of style and content.

Quite a tricky job.

On top of this it is not uncommon for subtitles to be added in a location remote from the transmission point. So, a live programme broadcast from London may be subtitled from Glasgow for example. This means that the transmission has to go to Glasgow, get subtitles produced, get the subtitles sent back to London and get them transmitted. With a live show this introduces considerable lag.

All told the people who do the subtitles work very hard and, generally, do very well. There is no question that things are far from perfect but it is usually possible to follow the thread of any show from the subtitles. On the other hand it is true, they can occasionally be very amusing indeed.

filfy

my thought is.... over the past few years technology has greatly improved and we now have loads of technicl gadgets that we never had such as pc, xbox, digi cams, internet, mobile phones etc to name a few, and these have all dramatically improved over the years ie mobile phones are no longer bricks and can play videos, music, video conferencing etc
SO... how come we still have teletext and how come it is still as crap as it was when it first came out??? Takes ages to come on, half the text is missing and is still in primary colours that annoy your eyes?????

hedgehog

The text is encoded in "spare" lines in the TV signal and is a fairly simple and low data rate signal.

If this were to change then we would need to change every TV in the country that can decode it, for a start. In view of the fact that the subtitle service for the deaf is part of public service broadcasting it would be unreasonable that a deaf person would have to buy a new TV to get an upgraded text service. I don't imagine many non-deaf people would be too keen on having to buy a new TV just to get more colourful text.

So it is a reasonable point to ask for "nicer" text but in the end the current service probably serves the needs of most people, if in a fairly boring way. It is that form and function argument I guess and in the long run it serves its function even if the form is a bit old hat.

mart360

one of the reasons sky has problems...

the interactive bit was what a lot of investors pumped hard cash into....

it was so slow they threatened to walk.. thtas why it all pay per play and spend crap.. very little active shopping.. unless you are bt who again make a mint..

Lum

I know how teletext subtitles work and will freely admit that getting them done at that sort of speed is not easy.
However IIRC they do have a 5 minute time delay on most live broadcasts these days, even so I wasn't trying to have a dig at the people who do them, just pointing out that they can be very funny when they get it wrong.
There's still no excuse for getting it wrong on pre-recorded shows though they regularly do, and DVD subs are just as bad half the time.

jods

I am red green colourblind so should I get a 66% discount of the difference between b+w and colour ??

hedgehog

I would be very, very surprised indeed if you ever see a 5 minute delay in subtitles and such a situation would suggest a one off fault rather than the general status quo. The actual delay varies depending on the exact circumstances and the nature of the material being subtitled but it is usually sufficiently low that the subtitles are close enough to the actual visuals for the programme to make sense.

In the case of pre-recorded shows in actual fact many of these are subtitled as live because the pre-recorded material is supplied to the broadcaster without subtitles. So while the actual programme material may indeed be coming off tape there is a good chance that the subtitles are being produced live, hence the same interesting additional information that you get on live programmes!

There are also cases where the subtitles are recorded to tape as if it were a live transmission and, again, this introduces the same potential for entertainment.

I do agree that they can be very funny at times, about the only thing that might make TV worth watching these days from what I gather.

Lum

nonono.

Most "live" broadcasts, apart from breaking news events and suchlike are subject to a 5 minute delay to give the producers time to edit out random swearing from the guests and so-on

Well that's just poor production decisions then :P No sympathy from me for that one.

scoobynutta555

On the 'live' subtitles do they swear as well, ie '****', etc when said words are uttered on screen?

hedgehog

This is not the case in real broadcasts and I suspect that you might be mixing TV up with radio, though there is another possibility in which case you are correct. Non-BBC radio generally has a delay in the studio output of something like 10 seconds to avoid any unfortunate events such as those you detail. While this delay is dumped, should something be said, a jingle or station ident is often played to cover the hole. This does not happen with BBC radio which is live, hence why it is a simple matter for live BBC radio shows to meet the pips on the hour.

In real TV there are two versions of "live" one which is really live and the other which is "recorded as live." Material which is recorded as live may be edited after the recording but the decision to record as live is often taken for reasons of schedule etc. rather than to allow for removal of inappropriate material. For example artists may not be willing to appear on a chat show late on a Friday night and so it may be recorded at another time. The delay in this material going to transmission is usually considerably more than 5 minutes and there is certainly not a standard 5 minute delay in this material.

Now, daytime TV might be a different matter and some daytime TV shows have a delay which they can dump however I really can't bring myself to consider that rubbish as broadcasting and would certainly like to think that it doesn't make up "most" live shows. It may well be this type of show to which you are referring in which case you are, of course, correct. I have no direct experience of the subtitling of such a show but imagine that it is done as live when the slightly delayed material is being transmitted purely for reasons of logistics.

In terms of the question as to if it is possible to subtitle swear words into a show then the answer is yes. However, because of the rather entertaining potential for error that Lum has pointed out the software can be configured not to allow such words through. There have been unfortunate cases where inappropriate language has, through mistakes by subtitlers or the phonetic way the system works, appeared in shows for which it was entirely unsuited. You can imagine the entertainment value of having the Prime Minister say a very bad word during a speech, or the Queen do similar during her Xmas day message. So, the swear word facility is usually disabled, in software, unless the programme being transmitted requires its use.

I've had another idea for the 5 minute delay that can appear in some daytime chat shows: the time could be used to allow the viewer to find something better to do with their life and the show could just the thrown in the bin.

scoobynutta555

Thanks for the reply about the swear wording in text format. Quite an informative piece about the service IMHO. As for the last paragraph, no chance lol

*Sonic*

if you are blind, how do you know to tick a box ?

on another note, doing Suse Linux recently, im convinced when it is loading, it says press a key for the braille option !!!!

M444GY

iTrader: (72)

lol