I went to look up a show on ABC’s web site and ran into the player. In big letters, it said ABC.COM has a full episode player. A few lines down, “Closed Captioning.” I tried to install the player in FireFox and followed all the directions including the “Allow” stuff, but it wouldn’t work after five tries.
My other computer’s FireFox loads the video player… but it runs on and on without ever playing the episode.
So I opened Internet Explorer and it worked. It required having the browser window completely opened or else you miss the player at the bottom along with the cc button. I selected Life on Mars as I was curious how the character went from 2008 to the ’70s.
After sitting through a commercial, the show started and so did the captions. They were harder to follow than on a TV screen as they work differently. The latest dialogue appears at the bottom while older dialogue scrolls up. Maybe it would be better to have newer dialogue at the top closer to the picture.
It makes sense to display the latest three lines of dialogue, but it can be hard to pinpoint the most current with conversations happening quickly.
Nonetheless, it was exciting and I hope the other networks will follow ABC even if it means I have to watch the videos in Internet Explorer.
3 comments
Thanks for the heads up, Bionic!
Hi… thanks for the info on ABC videos with CC!
Fox Network also have CC like Simpsons… But ABC is better in CC than Fox. Fox’s CC font is too small and far down-left corner below player’s buttons. It is not even near video border like ABC’s.
I checked with NBC, it is much better than both ABC and FOX. CC is embedded on the video and easier to watch.
Whoa! Thanks for the heads up, MAS! I can’t believe I didn’t think to check the others.