Comprompter, a La Crosse, WI, company specializing in news and automation software, is introducing Caption Central, a product designed to provide multiple captioning solutions for local broadcasters. Caption Central enables captioning from newsroom computer systems, via keyboard entry, and voice captioning.
Company CEO Ralph King said, ”We have been working on voice recognition for captioning for several years and even showed a beta version at the last two NAB shows, but it just didn’t quite keep up to the pace of a fast anchor. This year, we switched to a Microsoft Vista platform for the voice module and that made all the difference in the world. Caption Central is a stand-alone system that can output captioning for our own NewsKing newsroom system or nearly any other newsroom system we’ve tried so far.”
Caption Central uses a touch-screen computer. A single operator controls all captioning from the newsroom computer system, can manually type in announcer additions or use a headset microphone to insert text via voice recognition. The software performs a context comparison to select the most appropriate word when a conflict arises over which spelling of that word occurs. Caption Central also does spell checking and capitalizes proper names that it recognizes.
A USB-based audio mixer allows a live studio voice to speak directly into Caption Central and turn unscripted words into captioned text.
Caption Central is scheduled for release in spring 2008. Comprompter plans to offer product demonstrations on the NAB show floor in the Video Technics booth, #SU9227.
For more information, visit www.comprompter.com.
