Naval Media Center's Navy NewsStand Web Portal to use Hi-Caption integrated by EastBayMedia

From: Streaming Magazine, FL - 03 Mar 2003

HiSoftware Company announced today that EastBay Media has selected Hi-Caption for the creation and management of synchronized captioning for multimedia broadcasts for the Naval Media Center‘s Navy NewsStand web portal (www.news.navy.mil).

Hi-Caption allows for efficient creation, editing, and testing of the captioning of Multimedia. The captioning file is stored in a SAMI and/or a SMIL file. SAMI is an acronym for Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange and SMIL is an acronym for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language. The files are very similar to HTML, but are a different language. Hi-Caption supports creating captioning files for programs such as Windows Media Player, RealNetworks, RealOne and Apple QuickTime. Just as you would rather use a web editor to create web files, this program allows you to easily create the formatted captioning file, without having to learn the code behind it.

"Captioning is a very important and sometimes overlooked component of accessible Web Development," said Robert B. Yonaitis, President and CEO of HiSoftware Company. "As more and more organizations turn to multimedia development as part of their standard Web offerings, the ability to easily create captioning is critical to the success of these projects. Captioning provides the ability to present organization in benefits not only the hearing impaired, but also those accessing the Internet from location or devices that may not be sound enabled. Captioning also provides countless benefits for language presentation"

“Prior to using Hi-Caption, the Navy NewsStand website offered just a text transcript for each video that was not synchronized with the media”, said Brad Pumphrey, President of EastBay Media. “Now that we are utilizing Hi-Caption, web producers can quickly and easily add synchronized captions to the media files allowing for an improved user experience and full Section 508 compliance.”

HiSoftware’s accessibility solutions product line includes a combination of user-driven interactive desktop solutions that allow developers to test their content for conformance with standards, and server-side applications that provide managers with automated and remote testing. Used together these solutions enable developers, testers and project teams to verify Web site accessibility in compliance with Section 508, as well as Custom corporate-content quality standards. More information about these applications is available from the HiSoftware Web site at http://www.hisoftware.com/access/index.html.

EastBay Media joins a growing list of customers turning to HiSoftware Company for accessibility solutions, including but not limited to Microsoft Government, Mercury Interactive, Commerce One, the Internal Revenue Service, US Army Materiel Command, and Department of Defense.

Section 508, an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, requires electronic and information technology that is used, developed, and procured by the Federal government to be accessible to people with disabilities.

HiSoftware clients include ChevronTexaco, Commerce One, Mercury Interactive, and Microsoft Government. Founded in 1998, HiSoftware Company maintains North American corporate headquarters in Concord, New Hampshire. Further information about HiSoftware can be found online at www.hisoftware.com

EastBay Media is a provider of digital media and Internet video services and solutions. Headquartered in the Washington, DC area, the company assists Government agencies, universities, broadcasters, and companies utilize digital media technology. They provide streaming media solutions, webcasting, video hosting, media asset management, conversion and encoding, and digital media consulting. EastBay Media can be found on the web at http://www.EastBayMedia.com.

Copyright © 2003 Streaming Magazine and First MediaWorks