Terms & Agreements

Accuracy of transcriptions provided by client are the sole responsibility of client.

Client transcriptions must meet the following criteria in order to gain absolute exemption from standard transcription fees, or editing charges:

All transcriptions should be submitted as either a Microsoft Word™ file, or in Rich Text Format (.rtf).

Four Basic Rules of Captioning
1) Accuracy: Accurately presented verbatim transcription is always the goal.

2) Responsibility: It is essential to preserve the meaning and intent of the program.

3) Consistency: Strive for uniformity of description, speaker designation, etc. within each program

4) Clarity: Give a complete and true rendering of program audio. Identify who is speaking, include non-speech information, and keep descriptions simple.

False Starts and Utterances
When transcribing spontaneous conversation do not include nonverbal utterances, repeated words, or false starts to sentences unless they contribute to the understanding of conversation, personality, or are part of a dramatic effect or joke.

On Screen Information
If spoken words or lyrics are graphically presented on the program being transcribed, then it is not necessary to include them in the transcript. If spoken words or lyrics are different from a textual graphic (such as talking over end credits), full captions must be included.

Spacing
Do not leave more than one space in a caption. A single space may be used after a period, colon, or semicolon as necessary. It is common to leave a single space before and after music notes and parenthesis. There should be a space between parenthesis and enclosed text.

Text Attributes
Captioned text is traditionally in upper case because all television encoders and decoders display it clearly. In addition upper case text is easier to view for those viewers that have a small screen.


Punctuation
When punctuating captions, the goal is always to follow correct English sentence structure and the conventions and standards of normal print media to the greatest extent possible; and while you should always avoid grammatically incorrect results, they may be unavoidable sometimes. In short, do your best.

In the case of non-grammatical speech, punctuation cannot make it grammatically correct, so punctuation must, above all else, facilitate clarity and ease of reading. Therefore, caption writers should observe the following rules.

Keep punctuation minimal and clean.

Do not string sentences together with commas, creating comma-spliced sentences that are difficult to read

Find places to break run-on speech into simple sentences of four lines or less.

If necessary for clarity and ease of reading, captioned sentences may start with words such as OR, SO, AND, BUT, FOR, YET.

Acronyms and Abbreviations
Because captions are in upper case letters, acronyms become easier to read if periods are applied.

Example: THE C.E.O. HAS MOVED TO N.Y.C.

Descriptive Captions
Descriptive captions are those that represent the non-speech information in program audio. They are a useful tool for creating the mood, setting the scene, and establishing the context for dialogue. They are often used to describe music, background noises, and sound effects that are present in the audio track.

DRTV Productions, Inc. includes only those descriptive captions in a transcript, which are absolutely crucial to the understanding of the audio or story development. For example, a descriptive caption is required when a ringing phone interrupts a conversation mid-sentence. It is important that caption viewers realize why the conversation was interrupted.

Descriptive captions appear inside parentheses and use normal mixed case (this is an exception to the uppercase standard employed by DRTV). They should describe sound rather than action. The source of the sound must be identified if it is not obvious.

Use captions during subtitled passages to indicate and describe non-speech information as needed.

Descriptive text should only be added to a transcript when it increases situational understanding.
Descriptive text (that text which describes a sound) should be on a line by itself.
Descriptive text should be in lower-case, and surrounded by parenthesis.

Descriptive text should be separated from regular speech by a blank line on either side of the descriptive text, as shown in the following example:

NOW WE’RE PROCEEDING UP THE STAIRS AND WHOAH!

(loud creacking sound)

WATCH THAT STEP FRANK, I THINK IT MAY GO AT ANY MOMENT.

Music
Song lyrics should be verbatim. Use normal punctuation in songs where phrasing requires it. Do not use end punctuation in lyrics, with the exception of question marks.

Silence
Normally, the absence of captions is enough to indicate silence or pauses. If the silence is so long that the viewer may wonder what has happened to the captions you may add the descriptive caption (Long silence), (Long pause), or (No voice). In the case of audio loss due to technical difficulties you may include the caption (No audio) if there is no audio whatsoever, or (No mic audio) for loss of microphone audio.

Numbers
Follow the rule of spelling out whole numbers nine and under. Use numerals for other whole numbers, with the following exception. If a sentence contains a series of numbers above and below ten, use numerals for all.

Use numerals for ages, item makes and model numbers, odds, dates, dimensions, fractions, heights, designations, money, numerical abbreviations, temperatures, times, weapon calibers weights, and yardages.