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• Education
• Government
  • Who Should Use Our Services?
  • Why Caption?
  • Why AST?
  • Who Uses AST?
  • AST Services
  • Samples of Use
  • Pricing
  • Getting Started
• Traditional Video Producers
• Streaming Media Producers

For More Information

Interested?

For pricing or to get started, contact us at:

877-AST-SYNC
877-278-7962
info@automaticsync.com

Government

Government agencies, from the Office of the President to the Treasury Department, are coming to AST to caption their videos, including speeches, events and consumer education. Beyond just captioning for ADA Sections 508 and 504 compliance, agencies are discovering that captions make the videos discoverable in search engines, and can improve navigation within a video.

Transcripts complement Podcasts for the deaf and hard of hearing and can serve as a basis for foreign language translation and meet accessibility requirements for audio productions like radio broadcasts and Podcasts.

Customer Quote

Who Should Use Our Services?

Generally, people creating video and or audio recording at any branch of the Federal, State and local government agencies and departments. Any agency who needs to comply with Federal accessibility mandates: Section 504 and 508 of the amendment to the Americans with Disability Act, or any state accessibility mandates can use AST's services to generate compliant output.

Our application is accessible, and our VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) is available here.

Typical users of AST's services include:

• TV/Video/Media producers
• Instructional designers/training developers
• Politicians
• Government contractors
• Public affairs departments
• Human resource departments

Why Caption?

Captioning benefits many audiences especially the deaf and hard of hearing. Government Regulations mandate that video and audio need to be captioned to be accessible. Your content will be more discoverable on search engines. With search tools, captions can provide improved context-specific navigation. Captions and transcripts can serve as a basis for foreign language translation.

Research shows that most users of captions are not the deaf or hard of hearing, but people who like to process information visually, people whose language skills are deficient, English as a second language individuals, and people who are in locations where audio would not be appropriate.

Why Use Automatic Sync Technology's Services?

• Our quality is unsurpassed
• Our service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
• Our transcriptions are done by well trained, human stenographers, not machines
• Our automated workflow makes us the easiest service to use
• We offer rapid, reliable turnaround times
• Our pricing is very competitive. If you have a large quantity of captioning or transcribing, we offer volume discounts
• For large volumes, our web-based bulk processing is efficient
• We use secure FTP to ensure security for government agencies that need confidentiality
• We offer all popular file caption file outputs with no additional charges for each
• You may "redo" your caption file if you need to edit the text or need to get additional formats for up to six months at no additional charge
• Our company evolved from a Department of Education SBIR grant based on captioning technology research
• AST offers a variety of billing models, including billing in arrears, PO processing, and prepaid bulk purchases. We accept credit cards, P-Cards, electronic deposits or checks for payment.

Who Uses Automatic Sync?

Automatic Sync's CaptionSync is being used today by many state and federal agencies and local municipalities including:

• Department of Defense
• U.S. Census Bureau
• National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Internal Revenue Service
• NASA
• National Institute of Health
• President Obama's Inaugural Address

Services We Offer

Transcription services: AST offers transcription services to generate a word-for-word transcript creation of a media file, typically an .mp3 file. Our stenographers (people, not machines) typically turn around a document is 72 hours, with rush services at an additional cost. A transcript is a text document that contains timecodes, and is a prerequisite for generating captions. Transcription services are priced separately from captioning services, and are charged by the hour, in five minute increments.

Captioning/Subtitling: AST offers captioning services to generate of caption file(s) from a transcript which contain timecodes that allow synchronized captions to play in a variety of supported media file formats. Caption files can be used to perform key-word searches and to navigate to the part of the video or audio where the word or phrase occurs. Captioning is priced on a per-hour basis, in 5 minute increments. Download a brochure.

Digital Non-Linear Editing (NLE) Captions: For those who are creating broadcast quality tapes or DVDs, an additional file format, consisting of a black .MOV caption file is generated. This file is used with professional production systems like AVID, or software like Apple's Final Cut Pro, or Adobe Premiere. Download a brochure.

Results Review: AST offers a human reviewer service If you are creating a high-stakes production and would like to have your results reviewed and tuned for accuracy. Because audio quality can often contain noise, music, and competing sounds, a personal review will check the timing of your results and to ensure the caption timing is precise around noise or music. Additionally we will review the transcript for format errors and make minor corrections. Download a brochure.

How is CaptionSync being used in Government Applications?

Many government agencies are publishing video and audio files to the Web for communications and training. Whether the media is hosted on a government site or published for public consumption on sites like YouTube, by law, the content must be made accessible to people with disabilities. This means the video should display the captioned audio file so that people with hearing impairments can have as close to the same experience as those who can hear the audio.

Pricing

Our pricing is based per media hour, and is billed in five minute increments. Our government prices as of November 2009 start at:

Download our government price sheet.

AST offers government customers two ways to achieve volume discounts.

• Option 1: Bulk Prepay. AST offers bulk purchase discounts based by allowing you to buy a quantity of transcription and/or captioning time of your choosing. Once you create your CaptionSync login ID (see below), you can purchase time for your account. You may pay for for that time by mailing in payment or by using our online credit card payment system. Your account will be credited with the time you purchase when payment is received. You can them submit content for transcription and/or captioning and your balance of available time will be decremented.
• Option 2: Monthly Volume Invoicing If you choose not to prepay for time, AST will invoice you monthly for services used. We will extend our bulk discount to you for any services used in excess of 20 hours during that billing period.

How to Get Started

To use create an account with AST please:

1. Obtain a login account with Automatic Sync at: www.automaticsync.com/caption/signup_gov.php. If you wish to watch a video on "getting started" please go to: http://www.automaticsync.com/help.
2. You will receive via email an acknowledgement of your account activation which will confirm your login information. If you have a lot of media assets to upload, you may request by sending an email to support@automaticsync.com that your account be enabled to use AST-Link, a program that allows you to batch upload media files. If you will have multiple users associated with this account or have consolidated billing requirements please email support@automaticsync.com or call 877-AST-SYNC (877-278-7962) to let us know your requirement we will help you establish an account that supports you needs.
3. Gather your media files that you will need to have captioned. The CaptionSync system accepts a wide variety of media file formats.
4. Determine the type of caption file(s) you will need. You may get as many as you need (there are no extra fees for requesting multiple caption file types). These files will be emailed to you, or you can return to your account to download them, or to "redo" the captions for new formats at no additional charge (the redo function is available for 6 months from the date of submission). To determine the required caption type for your media, please consult: http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/results_faq.htm.
5. Login to your account and upload your files. Your transcript and caption files will be sent back to you generally within 3 business days unless you specify rush service in which the files are returned in one business day. If you need only caption files, you will need to upload an acceptable transcript, specify type of captions needed, and you will have your caption files returned to you in just minutes. Simply download the files into the directory where your media assets are stored. You may need to check your spam filter to ensure that the files are not being directed there. At any point in time, you may see the status of your job by looking at the "Reports" section of your AST account.
6. Once you have received your caption and transcript files, how you integrate and publish these will depend on your media type. Some output formats simply require adding the caption file to the same directory as the media, and other types require integration. To better understand how your desired media output accepts captions, please watch the "how to" videos at: http://www.automaticsync.com/help..
7. If you wish to make changes to your transcript or require additional caption formats, the "redo" process is described in the video located at: http://www.automaticsync.com/help.