Tuesday, August 21, 2012

RSG007's review of Sony Glasses

G'day Everyone.

My good friend and fellow blogger made a wonderful review of the SONY Caption Glasses that he wore while attending a movie theater in the DC metro area. So, here's the review: RGS007's review of SONY Glasses.

Sadly to say, in my opinion, the movie makers are trying to appease the hearing public by removing the open captions for the deaf people. To deny deaf people of open captions and putting them in the SONY glasses is like trying to force the deaf people to go mainstream with the hearing community. But you know what? There are better ways to go about doing this. Yes, the SONY glasses have room for improvement. But should only be used for towns and cities with a small deaf community there. But in large metro cities? It would be much better if theaters used open captions.
The SONY glasses wouldn't work well with people who need glasses to read and see.

Some cities and towns and theaters have a good relationship with their deaf community. Some do not.
But if the fate of open captions has been determined to put them in SONY Glasses, movie theaters should think again before it's too late.

Most of the deaf consumers that I know would rather wait 6 months to a year for the movies to come out on DVD and then watch it on their DVD players with subtitles or captions.

But the hearing community should have more respect for the deaf community. If they don't, then we got problems. Who's going to solve them? Right now, the hearing community should make a compromise. Let the theaters have open captions or change movies to have closed captions right on them for the deaf community.

I just hope SONY makes good changes to the glasses and movie theaters work better with the deaf community as well.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The Sony Access Glasses would be very useful for people with hearing loss in the UK. Although most cinemas now have facilities to screen the latest films with English-language subtitles & audio description for people with hearing or sight loss, there are only around 1,000 subtitled shows every week around the UK. That may sound a lot but it’s only around 1% of cinema shows. In the UK, subtitles are on the cinema screen, for all to see, so require separate screenings.

Subtitle glasses would increase the choice of subtitled films and shows tenfold. People would very much appreciate such a service from cinemas. Take a look at this page of feedback from the cinema-going public: http://www.yourlocalcinema.com/quote.html

Film distributors ensure that most popular cinema releases are routinely subtitled in many European languages, as well as captioned and audio described. Large-capacity DCP hard drives can easily accommodate a digital film and multi-language text/audio tracks.

A multi-language/caption/narration solution like the glasses would enable under-served, untapped audiences Europe-wide to enjoy the cinema experience. Not only people whose first language is not the local language, but also people with hearing or sight loss.

The potential reach is huge. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans would benefit from experiencing films in a variety of languages. And of course people with hearing or sight loss would benefit immensely. Each year tens of thousands of children are born across Europe with significant hearing loss. Every day thousands start to lose their sight. Millions, including more than a hundred thousand children, have significant hearing or sight loss.

With ageing, loss of some hearing or sight is inevitable. Access to film via captions/subtitles and audio description/narration is something that we may all appreciate eventually.

Derek Brandon
Twitter: http://twitter.com/yourlocalcinema/favorites