Closed captioning

Same here. I have two AppleTVs since few years ago. I would love to have CC as well.

YES. Closed Caption is a must for lots of people.

The mainstream media (Broadcast TV and DVDs) offer broad support for CC. The Internet streaming services will never become mainstream if they don't match up feature for feature nor offer the image quality of the traditional media formats.

Bob

It isn't the tv that determines whether closed captioning is available for a movie but the content providers willingness to include it in the media file.

iTunes has many CC movies and they are clearly denoted as having CC on the rental/purchase pages. it's not something I look for specifically but I'd say most content doesn't have CC.

You are right!

I have not bought an Apple TV just because most of its media doesn't come with CC!

My mother tongue is not English, so I need at least English subtitles to understand what's going on. Some movies/tv shows are very complicated to understand or sometimes the actors' pronunciation is very hard to understand.

I don't know the technical reason but my plasma tv is connected to my cable box via HDMI and it does not support the "closed caption" option. The tv operating manual indicates you have to use the 4-5 cable connection.

HDMI and Closed Captioning

See: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Howto_use_a_Motorola_DVR/Setup#ClosedCaption

Scroll down to Closed Captioning

I have not tried this yet but believe this is the reason you can't get cc even if its available.

This leads into the first big question for the new Apple TV. Do the settings include the ability to turn on/off captions. I've been looking through various photos and hands-on reviews but have yet to see if this is the case. If they do not have this setting, then you will not be able to get captions due to HDMI butchering CC data. Having said this, the AppleTV is based in iOS and CC on/off has been a setting on iPhones for a while, so it is likely to be there.

The next question is why is there so little CC content in the iTunes store? Apple made a big deal about captioning some movies a few years ago but has basically done very little since. You can see all the CC movies by going to Store -> Search -> Movies -> checkbox for CC. You won't be impressed. As far as I can tell, no TV shows are captioned.

This sort of problem has been going on since video sales were introduced in 2005. I have been told that at least one TV source claims to deliver shows to Apple with the CC data intact. Apple even has sample code in their Dev site for reading CC data:
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#samplecode/ClosedCaptionImporter/Introdu ction/Intro.html

Netflix has a similar problem in that they haven't been taking CC seriously either. They got called on the carpet for this at a shareholder meeting and have made slow, feeble steps towards providing captions since then. I suspect their AppleTV content will have similar deficiencies, assuming they even pass CC data to the AppleTV.

In short, this is a willpower thing, not a technical barrier. Until Apple, and Netflix, start importing CC by default we will continue to see very slow progress on this front.

If you ***** my finger, it will bleed Apple, but until Apple fully supports closed captioning, I just don't have a choice. I know our Blockbuster-by-mail membership is dying a painful death, but I guess I'm going to have to hang on to it until hearing impaired people are completely recognized as consumers. I have hope with the new access law passed last week that perhaps internet communications will be required to step up.

APPLE PLEASE TAKE NOTICE! I do not have a hearing loss but grew up in a household with deaf family members and will not be happy until I see streaming videos WITH CC! This goes for Netflix as well.

I totally agree about the fact that Apple should put pressure on the studios to make more movies and TV programs available with CC for Apple TV.

I am hearing impaired, just had a cochlear implant, and I cannot watch TV without CC.

I was just about to push the « order » button for the Apple TV when I decided to check about ahow many movies were available with CC... Pffff! What a deception!

As someone already posted earlier, this is totally unacceptable in 2010 !!!

For that reason, I will not order Apple TV.

CC can be toggled on and off under Settings/Audio/Video/Closed Captioning.
If it works or not currently I can't tell you. But the option is definitely there. So it's a step in the right direction.

Message was edited by: Jolly Blackburn1

cc was an option on the first apple tv, but nothing was available in cc. Disappointed, Apple TV 2 has become smaller paper weight for videos.