Patent ID: 8826326

Claim:
A bridge apparatus for enabling a programming originator to control one or more display aspects of closed captioning data, comprising: a first communications port operable for communicating with a captioning computer; a second communications port operable for communicating with a programming originator computer; a third communications port operable for communicating with an encoder; a non-transitory memory having stored therein a bridge program; a processor operable to execute the bridge program, wherein the bridge program further comprises instructions for: receiving, from the captioning computer, one or more closed captioning characters; receiving, from the programming originator computer, at least one control data command, wherein the control data command specifies at least one contemporaneous modification to one or more display aspects of the one or more closed captioning characters, wherein the one or more display aspects specify at least one of a size and location for placement on a screen of a display device of at least one or more of the one or more closed captioning characters; converting the at least one control data command into one or more caption control codes; and incorporating the one or more caption control codes with the one or more closed captioning characters into caption data; and outputting caption data to the third communications port.