Indiana Assistive Technology Blog

Movie theater popcorn, credited to gennierobot from flickr

Going to see a movie is a great way to spend an evening with friends, family, or a date.  The cushioned seats, dark surroundings, smell of popcorn, and in-your-face large movie screen have a way of capturing your undivided attention and exciting the senses.  Theaters across the nation have continually improved conditions to try and please a wide array of audiences by providing food and drink, a variety of different films available at one time, comfortable seating, and more.  Thanks to MoPix, now even deaf or blind audiences can enjoy the experience!

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Ubi-Duo

The UbiDuo is an ideal communication device for people with hearing impairment.  It’s portable, runs on batteries, and allows for uncomplicated conversation between two to four people.  Let’s take a closer look at how this piece of assistive technology operates.

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Example of a YouTube video with captions

After reading and blogging about the Automatic Captions that have recently become available for YouTube videos, we were eager to try them ourselves.  It turned out to be a little more work than we expected, but the end results were very satisfying.  One of the biggest problems we encountered was that we found less information than expected on going through the actual process of adding captions.  We’ve decided to share what we learned so you know what to expect and what worked for us.

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Assistive technology comes in many shapes and sizes.  It can be high tech computer software, or very low tech tools, such as a magnifying glass.  These items are not restricted to any one group; all kinds of people can gain independence from using assistive technology.  There are technologies that can help with hearing loss, mobility challenges, learning difficulties, vision loss, and communication.  These items are available for the young and aging, whether you have a severe disability or just need a little extra help.  I know that I myself take advantage of eyeglasses for my poor vision, and am not afraid to admit that I use a jar gripper from time to time!

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Google Video and YouTube were first equipped with captions and subtitles back in September of 2006.  Although this was a big leap toward accessibility, there were still many flaws to be sorted out.  On November 19, Google’s official blog revealed that they now offer automatic captions, or auto-caps.  Google implements a technology called automatic speech recognition that machine-generates captions for videos.  For those who still wish to add captions manually, there is a feature called automatic caption timing that uses that same recognition technology to attach captions at the right time.

Google admits that auto-caps still aren’t perfect.  They provide an example of a mistake in this video:

Closed Captioning

Netflix, Starz, and Blockbuster On Demand all offer movies and TV episodes that you can “watch instantly” by hooking your television up to the internet using a specified device.  While these companies have made movies more accessible to a larger audience, none of them currently provide Closed Captioning for the hearing impaired on their streaming movies and TV episodes.

When researching this topic, I came across comments from several uninformed individuals who didn’t see why this was important.  According to the Deafness Research Foundation,

Approximately 17 percent (36 million) of American adults report some degree of hearing loss.

That’s a pretty significant audience!

A representative from Netflix blogged in June that Closed Captioning is in the works for their streaming videos, but would probably not be available until at least 2010.  A Comcast representative recently replied to a frustrated customer with a link to the FCC’s stance on Closed Captioning.  According to her, all video content is supposed to be captioned after January 2006 unless it contains specific exceptions.

These exceptions that allow companies like Netflix to be exempt from providing Closed Captioning include late night programs, public service announcements lasting less than 10 minutes, local educational programs, and

Any video programming or video programming provider for which the Commission has determined that a requirement for closed captioning imposes an undue burden.

Child watching TV

So what options exist for the hearing impaired?  Hulu, Youtube, and HBO On Demand all offer Closed Captioning for streaming movies and TV episodes.  You can also gather support on this issue by visiting the Facebook group Netflix Watch-Instantly Needs Closed Captions! What other websites have you come across with accessibility positives or negatives?