CEA should “bring an end to its misguided campaign to...
CEA should “bring an end to its misguided campaign to avoid implementing closed captioning functionality on removable media players,” said five groups representing the hearing-impaired and a program at a university that teaches such people. The plea came in a…
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letter to the FCC on the association’s Feb. 26 filing (http://bit.ly/WtbCuD) on CEA’s request for the agency to redo Internet Protocol captioning rules so some consumer electronics like stand-alone DVD players don’t fall under them. Instead of pursuing that attempt to change last year’s IP captioning order, the association should “turn to the task of ensuring that all consumers who purchase removable media players and discs can experience the benefits of video programming on equal terms,” the groups said in docket 11-154 (http://bit.ly/Z3Ywk5). “The history of the Television Decoder Circuitry Act supports the Commission’s decision to cover removable media players under Section 203(a) and undermines CEA’s arguments about the cost of adding closed captioning functionality to such players.” The 1990 law also was opposed by CEA’s predecessor, the Electronic Industries Alliance, said the Association of Late-Deafened Adults, National Association of the Deaf, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Gallaudet University’s Technology Access Program and others. “EIA’s fears that closed captioning functionality would send the price of television sets spiraling out of control never materialized.” A few years after passage of the act, EIA “abandoned its public opposition” to captioning functionality on TV sets, said the groups, which also include the Cerebral Palsy and Deaf Organization and Deaf Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network. CEA, in a filing also posted Friday in the docket, asked the commission to approve the association’s petition for reconsideration of the IP captioning rules. That’s “because some of the issues raised in the proceeding on emergency information and video description are related” to the petition, executives at Samsung and the association told aides to all FCC members (http://bit.ly/WlkiEk).