By Deanna Baker
When considering DOS-based vs. Windows-based, it's a somewhat easy decision. DOS is ancient, old, archaic. It's tough to find a computer where a DOS program will work. You want and need the flexibility of Windows-based programs to access the Internet, have e-mail, instant messaging, Real Player capabilities, send realtime to the Internet, Go Back capability, Explore capabilities, system tools capabilities, Microsoft Word (or other such word processing) available, Device Manager access, current Windows operating system compatibility ... getting the idea? In addition, if the vendor you're looking at hasn't upgraded from DOS, what's the problem? When captioning, we're connecting to encoders, which have kept up with technology, and some don't work with DOS-based captioning software. That's a major problem. I doubt you want to limit the work you can take.
About the author
Deanna Baker, FAPR, RMR, is from Flagstaff, Ariz. If you have a question about captioning, you can ask her at dpbaker@mindspring.com.