uHear™ never miss a line of dialogue
I like movies and often purchase DVDs including the blu-ray HD format. Recently I came across a review for The American DVD which discusses a feature on the disc called uHear:
Universal Studios Home Video has introduced an overdue upgrade… On its Blu-ray release of the new suspense drama “The American,” there’s a feature called uHear™. Hit the pop up menu and click on the uHear button and the movie skips back a few seconds and turns on the subtitles just for the patch of dialogue you missed.
Wow. Why’d this one take so long to get here?
SOURCE: explorehoward.com
I can’t find out much more about this on the internet other than it also seems to be a feature available on what I assume are Region 1 blu-ray DVDs of the movies: Despicable Me, My Soul To Take, and It’s Kind Of A Funny Story.
Now I’ve missed the bit off from the above review in which the author claims that this feature solves the issue of having to watch an entire movie with the subtitles for the hard of hearing switched on throughout. Firstly, I don’t agree with that being a ‘problem’ – no surprise there, and also the feature wouldn’t be available if the whole movie wasn’t subtitled in the first place! I am pleased that the author is positive about this new feature on the blu-ray disc though.
However, all of this misses the point because the fact that this feature is available means that someone at Universal Studio Home Video decided they could market subtitles as an extra feature. That’s actually kind of awesome. Somebody realised that it isn’t just people diagnosed as hard of hearing or deaf that might well appreciate subtitles being available. I’ll repeat that – somebody in a marketing department has thought about subtitles! I find that exciting! (Next time can that same person remember that ALL extras on a DVD should be subtitled – that includes the commentaries). The very nature of subtitles or closed captioning being an option to switch on means most people have probably never thought about them that much. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve reminded people subtitles and closed captioning exist and to turn them on is the solution to the problem they are having! I wonder how many more movie titles will have this feature and if other distributors catch on and do the same. I’ll be looking out for it on my next Universal blu-ray purchase.
cpaulg, and 5 others are discussing. 
i heart subtitles 
Tweets that mention uHear™ never miss a line of dialogue « i heart subtitles -- Topsy.com 5:55 pm on January 5, 2011 Permalink |
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by DeafRead and Dawn Jones. Dawn Jones said: i heart subtitles NEW! blog post: uHear™ never miss a line of dialogue: http://wp.me/pJTgo-8z […]
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Michael Lockrey 9:12 pm on January 7, 2011 Permalink |
Wow! This sounds great and it is a mainstream initiative too! I always get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside when we are the recipients or beneficiaries of new technology (even if the intent wasn’t specific)!
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acsbloggo 1:09 pm on January 8, 2011 Permalink |
That’s fantastic. It’s really aggravating not to understand the “extras” on DVDs because they lack captioning. This goes for trailers of movies both on television and at theaters. Even when there are open captioned films, only the films themselves have the captioning, not the endless trailers that precede the film. Captionfish.com does show captioned trailers….anybody know how they do it?
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iheartsubtitles 8:26 pm on January 8, 2011 Permalink |
All the movie trailers at CaptionFish are captioned by Bill Creswell who has captioned more than I can count online for the benefit of others – see link to his blog on the right under Blogroll
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Bill Creswell 9:23 pm on January 8, 2011 Permalink
That’s me! I captioned my first movie trailer, Spiderman 3, after my first encounter with a deaf person (that I was aware was deaf http://deafpundit.wordpress.com/2007/05/05/subtitling-moviesvlogs/) , as I realized the theater that I worked for showed CC movies, but no CC trailers.
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Ally Woodford 12:12 am on January 14, 2011 Permalink |
I believe the Uhear feature is also available on ‘The Kids are All Right’ and ‘Robin Hood’. I’m trying to track down more information from Universal about it, but it’s not related to the Iphone app, Uhear.
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iheartsubtitles 10:32 pm on January 14, 2011 Permalink |
Hmm, I’ve been meaning to purchase Robin Hood, maybe now is the time! Thanks for the info. I wasn’t even aware there was an app with the same name. I wonder how long before they are asked to change it, since it seems to be registered as a trade mark.
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Universal blu-ray DVDs – uHear™ « i heart subtitles 10:53 am on January 17, 2013 Permalink |
[…] can see my original post on this here. I would like to say I have used it but then I have the subtitles on all the time and so I never […]
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cpaulg 6:25 am on January 5, 2016 Permalink |
The uhear feature was mainly designed for people who miss a line or two due to a heavy foreign accent or if the dialogue was drowned out by music or sound effects. Amazon and Netflix have this same feature for streaming videos. Being a person without a hearing deficit, I don’t like leaving subtitles on for an entire movie just because of the rare chance there might be a line or two that I miss. Subtitles just isn’t the default setting for someone like me when I pop in an English language movie. The uhear feature is perfect for an occasional need so that I don’t have to stop the movie when I miss a line, rewind it 30 seconds, go in and enable subtitles, replay the 30 seconds, then turn off the subtitles. Talk about a mood killer.
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iheartsubtitles 12:07 pm on January 6, 2016 Permalink |
Thanks for your comment. I can completely see why for the reasons you state it is useful feature that allows for a quick way of switching on then off with one click. Because I use the subtitles button a lot I usually look for DVD/Blu-ray players that have a subtitle button that allows me activate them quickly rather than having to go back to a DVD Menu for similar time-saving reasons.
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otladministrator 11:32 pm on February 13, 2016 Permalink |
The Option doesn’t always work. It doesn’t work on my Straight Outta Compton blu ray
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iheartsubtitles 11:52 pm on March 7, 2016 Permalink |
Interesting. Thanks for your comment. I don’t think all blu-ray DVDs have it. How a distributor choose whether to add it to a title release or not I have no idea.
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