NOVI, Mich.—The Enco enCaption system has found a place in the Pennsylvania Senate, as the Senate Video Facility has chosen the product to provide automated closed-captioning services for TV and some in-person operations for hard-of-hearing individuals.
The Senate had previously attempted to provide closed-captioning services by pulling data from the court reporter’s transcription system, however the results proved unreliable. Meanwhile, the option of human transcribers presented scheduling issues, the Senate found.
Dave Costanza, the certified broadcast networking technologist who heads up the Senate’s broadcasting operations, eventually tested the enCaption system and opted to make it their permanent solution.
The Senate Video Facility now has four enCaption systems, placed in the Chamber and three hearing rooms. Each space has remotely controlled cameras feeding video switchers, with the program audio feed routed to the enCaption system. The resulting captions are fed to an external encoder for incorporation into the final video signal, which are then sent to the Pennsylvania Cable Network for distribution throughout the state.
In addition to closed-captioning for TV broadcast, the enCaption system is occasionally used for in-room captioning needs, providing openly displayed captions in the event that a participant is hard-of-hearing.
For more information, visit www.enco.com.
