Profile
Since 1999, U.S. Captioning Company has been instrumental in providing high quality captioning services at affordable rates. Over the years, they expanded their services to meet the needs of clients who value the importance of supplying accessible communication for deaf and hard of hearing communities. Through using U.S. Captioning services, patrons are given access to television programs, educational courses, church services, work seminars, sporting events, and more. Their services also reach out to English as second language learners and benefit children who are learning how to read.
Challenges
U.S. Captioning Company has been expanding their post production department to meet the growing needs of the new FCC guidelines that have been recently put into practice. There is now the expectation that any content delivered with more than 24 hours between taping and air needs to be closed captioned prior to airing. In addition, their real time closed captioning services must meet those quality guidelines for accuracy, and to monitor that, U.S. Captioning Company requests air checks from their clients. Departments now need to move around large video electronically; files which cannot be broken down into smaller pieces or be overly compressed.
Solution
Prior to implementing a FileCatalyst solution, U.S. Captioning Company was manually managing the files in their system, and relying on clients or vendors to confirm that a file had completed uploading. U.S. Captioning Company chose to use FileCatalyst Direct and FileCatalyst HotFolder to send their large video files securely and reliably, at speeds of up to 10Gbps.
Results
The results have been excellent. FileCatalyst has helped streamline U.S. Captioning’s workflow, since employees no longer need to manually move a file for the majority of their file transfers. Through the use of FileCatalyst HotFolder, they were able to automate their file transfers and create a hands-off process that routes all of their files to correct locations with an automated alert, as well as archives their content. Additionally, with email alerts, once a file transfer is complete there are no issues arising from moving an incomplete file. Employees no longer have to spend time watching their FTP transfers, waiting to see if a file has been uploaded or not; delivery of files is guaranteed with FileCatalyst. When a file transfer is complete, each file is verified using MD5 checksum to ensure there is no data corruption.
“Implementing FileCatalyst has saved us time, which has increased our productivity and decreased stress, all of which provide a cost savings to the company,” said Jenny Carson from U.S. Captioning Company. “I am also pleased to say that every interaction with a FileCatalyst team member has been wonderful. Everyone has been friendly, knowledgeable, and prompt in communication.”