From the Laptop screen to the TV/Monitor

So far, Tim is the only one who has benefited from the captioning that our stenographer has provided. We set up a music stand for the laptop to sit on, our stenographer sets up her steno machine next to it, and Tim reads from the screen in front of him everything she types. On the Sundays that our stenographer has been out of town, I've filled in by voice writing in the same manner (though not nearly with the same quality--given my inexperience). The set-up works fine, but we want all of our deaf and hard of hearing people to benefit, not just Tim.
From what I understand, all we need now are two things in order to get the text from the laptop screen to a TV/monitor screen (we already have video equipment).

• An encoder


• Software to translate text from VR software to the encoder (different software for steno than voice recognition – I haven’t checked into the steno side of things.)

Since we already have VR software (i.e. Dragon): CPC Computer Prompting and Captioning is one choice. They sell software called Caption Maker 500 (for translating the text into caption format for the encoder). They also sell encoders. Last time I talked to their representative, they were working on Caption Maker for Dragon, they already have it for Via Voice. See: http://www.cpcweb.com/Captioning/cap_500.htm or call CPC at 800-977-6678
If you have not purchased VR software: Ultech has an all inclusive package called Caption Mic Live Event. It includes everything needed to start captioning to TV screen or monitor (except the TV screen & video equipment). It looks like a reasonable price compared to purchasing everything separately as we have done. See their product information sheet: http://www.ultech.com/downloads/71-Caption%20Mic%20-%20Live%20Event%20Product%20Sheet.pdf or call 888-360-0010Before making this final purchase of Caption Maker and the encoder, I’m doing additional research. I’m not certain that staying with Dragon is the best choice. I am checking into Caption Mic as well searching out other possible options (ISIS & ProCat). I’ll let you know when a decision is made.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert in this field. I have gathered information and this is what I found so far. Since I may have misunderstood some information or may have incomplete information, I highly recommend you seek out the expertise of others before your final decisions are made.