New technology will start being rolled out later this year in major movie cinemas, making it possible for deaf and blind people to follow the film they are watching.New ideas and innovation are what make these things possible. There are always new technologies being developed for deaf and blind people, and people with various conditions or disabilities.
The digital technology, which includes providing captions and audio descriptions, will be introduced for films screened by the four major cinema groups.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
New technology on captioning and audio at theaters
This is what I'm talking about. Let innovation drive technology as a solution rather than have laws forcing companies to do the impossible.
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5 comments:
Hey, Mike, that's for Australians. HR 3101 is taking hits right and left by the media industry, and is the technology for movie/TV/internet captioning here taking the lead in this country? Like, duh.
Ann_C
Mike:
I'm afraid I will have to disagree with you on this one. While it is true that technological innovation is driving developments such as this, there are a couple of arguments against solely allowing private enterprise to set the market timeline in situations such as this.
For example, close captioning for television was possible as early as 1971, but did not become standard in televisions until the passage of the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990, nearly 20 years after the technology was first demonstrated, first in 1971, and again in another showing in 1972 at Gallaudrt University.
While it was possible to purchase decoders in the 80's for captioning, few stations implemented caption transmission on their shows, and as we all know, the unemployment/underemployment rate of the deaf and hard of hearing made it difficult to even afford the decoders. I can remember my first one purchased, for approximately $200 in 1990.
Considering all of that, it IS sometimes necessary for legislative intervention to goose them along in the application of technology. Critics lambasted the requirements when it was enacted in 1990, saying that it would drive the prices of televisions through the roof, etc. Obviously, that did not happen.
This link shows some interesting timelines in the history of captioning development:
http://www.ncicap.org/caphist.asp
And I find it more than a little ironic that a country with 2.5 million deaf and hard of hearing is basically the beta testing ground for this technology when we have 36 million people with a hearing loss ourselves. I'm aware that Sony is in the process of developing glasses to be utilized with captioning. This is good, but again overlooks simple potential problems such as how many deaf people wear glasses already? Will they fit over the glasses? Will they not have a decrease in clarity of sight like safety goggles sometimes do? And so forth and so on. No technology will ever be THE perfect solution or answer due to the myriad of disabilities that exist, but sometimes waiting and hoping for the perfect solution does nothing but allow the times to pass you by.
Eddie (ThumpaFlash)
Eddie, early on it was needed to pass certain laws and acts to include accessibility requirements through the use of technology. Nowadays, companies are becoming more attuned to address this other "market share" of people that require accessibility needs.
For captioning or subtitling we are seeing more of these software use come forward such as YouTube's transcriptioning service, free caption/subtitle online software (e.g. BubblePly).
Blackberry phones are beginning to have Closed Captioning capability to view videos on your smart phones' screen which is definitely smaller than a 13-inch screen television screen. So does the iPhone.
Hulu adds internet captioning to their movies and television shows. The list continues to grow.
We are seeing more simultaneous closed captioning companies finding a niche market that exploit closed captioning needs.
ABC takes the lead on internet captioning which will force other media companies to catch up with the rest of the competition vying for a "market share" of people with hearing loss.
Today technology moves faster than the government could in trying to pass a bill. And that's encouraging. There is nothing in the law today that forced these companies to include these captioning/subtitling opportunities. And are now moving ahead already what the govt is trying to get them to do in the HR 3101 bill not yet passed.
Brian, I am talking about today. Technology has caught up so fast that it's on a path where it doesn't need govt intervention to comply accessibility or access needs. Market needs and demands will drive this faster that what a govt could even hope for. Technology was slow in catching up in the past while today it's already moving ahead.
Compared to 10 to 15 years ago what we have now we didn’t have then or the improvement we have now. It might seem snail pace but if you put everything together there has been leaps and bounds on the improvements in communication in virtually in all areas.
*Cell phones and texting
*Internet relay service
*Automatic transcriptioning of videos on YouTube (accuracy varies)
*Video phone
*CART
*Communication Device (Ubi Duo)
*Instant Messaging (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc)
*Email
*Movie theater captioning
*DVD/CD/Tape movie CC
*Real time human captioning
*Hearing aids
*Cochlear implant
*Blogging
*Vlogging
*Internet video captioning (e.g. Project ReadOn)
*Automatic real time captioning (non-human, continues to improve)
*Core computer chips by improving efficiency, speed and performance where we go from dual core chips, to quad, to 16 core, to 32 to soon in a few years a several thousand core chip that will help in the area of communication including ASL recognition software (ASL to voice, ASL to text, text to voice, voice to ASL, Voice to text, voice to translated voice and so on).
The United States is the most technologically advanced along with vast support in the social services on providing the most communication access for people who are deaf and hard and hearing. In fact, we are the most spoiled bunch of people in the world in that respect but at the same time we continue to be proving grounds for the world to see.
I don’t go to movie theaters. I’d rather wait 3 months, buy or rent a DVD movie and pop it into my DVD player a watch it on my oversize high definition television screen with my friends or family. No worry about gunky floors covered with spilled soda, popcorn, gum or candy. No worry about people behind you to be quite or for you to tell that idiot in front of you to be quiet or stop the unnecessary movements. No worry about running to the bathroom and miss a part of the movie. And certainly I am not going to pay 45 bucks for the whole family to watch a movie and buy additional 15 bucks worth of munchies. The best and cheapest way to go is to watch at home. So, movie captioning isn’t an issue with me. But I understand people want that movie going experience, and that’s fine. But progress is being made. I think people tend to forget how far and where we came from 10 to 15 years ago. Technology continues to be our friend and savior. It wasn't exactly the govt forcing companies to do these things. It was private companies who did the innovating today.
Mike and others,
I am with Eddie "Thumpflash" 100 percent how the law FORCED the change within societal attitude, ex. the Civil Right of 1964.
This new technology is kinda vague to be definied. It is in Aussie, not America!
RLM
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