Elk Grove Village, IL, USA, November 21, 2005 -- Ascender Corporation, a leading provider of fonts for hardware & software developers,  announced the release of its first set of digital TV fonts for closed captioning. The Ascender TV Font Collection includes fonts that meet the EIA-708-B standard for Digital TV Closed Captioning (DTVCC). The fonts are available in the non-proprietary TrueType or OpenType font formats, and can work with the popular FreeType rasterizer, thus lowering the cost for TV manufacturers.

Closed captioning is a technology that allows text to be superimposed over the video to benefit persons with hearing disabilities. All television receivers in the United States are mandated by the FCC to include support for the EIA-708-B closed captioning standard. EIA-708-B includes a range of options to display closed caption text, including a variety of font styles in different sizes and colors, and support for Unicode.

The Ascender TV Font Collection features seven fonts licensed from Microsoft and Bigelow & Holmes, and feature some of the most legible fonts ever optimized for on-screen viewing. Each of these fonts make closed captioning text readable and attractive. The fonts in the collection address the following seven font styles as mandated by the FCC:

- Monospace Serif: Courier New CC
- Proportional Serif: Georgia® CC
- Monospace Sans Serif: Lucida® Console CC
- Proportional Sans Serif: Verdana® CC
- Casual: Comic Sans® CC
- Cursive: Corsiva® CC
- Small Capitals: Tahoma® Small Cap CC

The Ascender TV Font Collection is now available for integration into 708 caption decoders that are required in all DTV receivers. Ascender's fonts are available in a variety of font formats, including TrueType and OpenType. The fonts feature extensive character sets to address world-wide markets, and can also be customized to meet the specific needs for digital TVs.

A PDF brochure of Ascender's Closed Captioning fonts can be viewed here: http://www.ascendercorp.com/tv_fonts.html

About Ascender Corporation:
Ascender Corporation is a leading provider of advanced font products specializing in font design, development and licensing. Ascender’s founders are font industry experts, and have been involved in developing some of the most important and influential fonts used in computers, phones and printers. Ascender provides multilingual, custom font development for enterprises and hardware & software developers. Ascender also provides high quality fonts for immediate download from the Ascender Font Store website (http://www.ascenderfonts.com).

Trademarks: Ascender is a trademark of Ascender Corporation which may be registered in the US Patent and Trademark office and certain other jurisdictions. Microsoft, Windows, OpenType, ClearType, Georgia, Comic Sans, Tahoma and Verdana are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Lucida is a registered trademark of Bigelow & Holmes. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Contact:
Bill Davis
Ascender Corporation
25 Northwest Point Blvd, Suite 975
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007 USA
Phone: (847) 357 0730 ext. 10
Fax: (847) 357 0731
http://www.ascendercorp.com

News Source: PRWEB