An exemplary method relates to buffering closed captioning data. The exemplary method comprises receiving closed captioning information comprising closed captioning data and a field, determining whether a current closed captioning data buffer is available for the field, saving the closed captioning data to the current closed captioning data buffer if the current closed captioning data buffer is available for the field, determining whether a next closed captioning data buffer is available for the field if the current closed captioning data buffer is not available, saving the closed captioning data to the next closed captioning data buffer if the next closed captioning data buffer is available for the field, checking whether the closed captioning data can be ignored if the next closed captioning data is not available for the field, dropping the closed captioning data if the closed captioning data can be ignored, checking whether there is room for an additional closed captioning data buffer if the closed captioning data cannot be ignored, saving the closed captioning data to the additional closed captioning data buffer if the there is room for the additional closed captioning data buffer, and dropping the closed captioning data if there is no room for the additional closed captioning data buffer.