Cinema, smart phones and subtitles/closed captions
As lucky as I am to be living in an area where subtitled cinema screenings are available sometimes I struggle to make them because the times available don’t match my lifestyle (I can’t go to the cinema at 2pm on a weekday as much as I’d like to, I have to work during those hours for example). The obvious answer is to wait until the movie comes out on DVD and unless your really unlucky, thankfully most DVDs will provided closed captioning or subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. But some movies are meant to be seen on the big screen right? And what if you have a DVD that does not have closed captions or subtitles available? If you have a smart phone there is an option that whilst I don’t think is anywhere near as good as going to a subtitled screening or watching a subtitled DVD, it does at least offer an alternative that is better than struggling with no help at all.
For the iPhone there is an app available simply called subtitles. Once you’ve downloaded the app you can search for the film you want subtitles for. The app then searches the database from opensubtitles.org to see if they are available. Here is its first limitation, the film you want might not be available (just today I searched for The Kings Speech – none available). However there is a large database, and I was able to find subtitles for two movies – The Other Guys, and The American which I downloaded and used to go to a non-subtitled screenings at my local cinema last year. Once you have downloaded the subtitles you can then view them on your iPhone screen. The app gives you control and it is up to you to sync the subtitles with film audio and press play as soon as the movie starts. Here in is another limitation as it can be tricky to get it right but to be fair it took me less than a minute to get the timing right at the beginning of the film (for someone with a more severe hearing loss I wonder how easy that might be?) I did have to keep redoing this when the subtitles occasionally would lose sync again. Whether this is a technical limitation of the app or an error in the subtitling file itself I don’t know. I suspect the latter. The most impressive thing about the app for me is the text itself is easy to read and you can also control how bright or dim the text appears for the comfort of your own reading and the lighting within the cinema itself. You can make your screen very dim so not to annoy other people watching the movie with bright light glaring from your phone and the text still remains easy to read and follow. This is well thought out and considered. For another detailed user review of this app complete with screen grabs etc visit Able Bodied.
The subtitles app is free to download and despite some of the limitations that I’ve mentioned, ultimately I think its fantastic that it has been developed and created and I know now that I can always try it and search for subtitles to use at no extra cost to me. This is a great example of new technology providing greater access with little cost.
Sticking with the iPhone for a moment, even at the cinema and on your DVD, any trailers for upcoming releases are not subtitled or captioned. Make sure you download the CaptionFish Trailers app which allows you to watch movie trailers complete with the subtitles/captions. This too is free to download. Brilliant 🙂 Note: Since the company is US based, the trailers provided will predominantly be the US trailers and not the international versions which are sometimes different.
For those without an iPhone, an alternative to the iPhone subtitles app reviewed above comes from David King (@oodavid on twitter) who voluntary developed a free application that should work on most modern phones and allow it to display subtitles – check out oosubtitles! That’s clever right? And if anyone else knows of any more alternatives please comment and let me know.
Tweets that mention Cinema, smart phones and subtitles/closed captions « i heart subtitles -- Topsy.com 9:04 pm on January 27, 2011 Permalink |
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Roz White, Dawn Jones. Dawn Jones said: NEW! blog post – Cinema, smart phones and subtitles/closed captions: http://wp.me/pJTgo-99 […]
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amy 6:38 pm on January 29, 2011 Permalink |
seriously cool. thanks for sharing. we don’t have cc for movies in our area at all. my son is an implant user but really needs captions at the movies. I am not sure he’d really be able to follow the captions on the phone and the movie as well- and there is the detail that i don’t have an iphone LOL. but this is pretty NEATO!
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iheartsubtitles 5:56 pm on January 30, 2011 Permalink |
thanks for commenting. Maybe there are similar apps for other smart phones. I hope so!
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jane 12:46 am on January 30, 2011 Permalink |
Thank you for this info. My mother who is deaf is thrilled to know about this. She recently purchased an iphone to be able to communicate through text and facetime (she is an amazing lip reader). To be able to visit a new release movie is an exciting prospect.
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iheartsubtitles 5:57 pm on January 30, 2011 Permalink |
Your welcome. I hope the app proves useful.
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Bill 3:50 pm on March 13, 2011 Permalink |
There is an app for Droid called “SubtitlePlayer” that sounds the same
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Bill 4:00 pm on March 13, 2011 Permalink |
http://www.theandroidsoul.com/mvieo-player-subtitle-captions-app-search-download-play/
This, and the previous one “may” be for dvds.
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iheartsubtitles 5:04 pm on April 26, 2011 Permalink |
thanks for the info 🙂 Will check it out.
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New subtitling technolgy for TV broadcast and the cinema | i heart subtitles 3:12 pm on March 22, 2013 Permalink |
[…] I was also lucky enough to take part in a cinema subtitling technology demo in London at the weekend. It was organised by the CEA. They have asked for us not to publicise too much information about what we used and that the CEA would publish public information about the trials results soon. I want to respect that request so the details of the devices we used are deliberately vague in this blog post. I was part of a screening which tested two types of personal devices that allow the individual to see subtitles without any being displayed on the cinema screen. I was allocated one of them. I took part in the focus group afterwards during which the feedback was very mixed for both pieces of technology. For those that don’t know the CEA has already done a lot of work in getting open subtitles screenings in cinemas across the UK which I am grateful for. We are one of the few countries to do this. I am of the opinion that the best technological solution is open subtitles. The UK cinema industry currently does not use any other form of technology to provide subtitles (to my knowledge). There were several different views expressed by different people at the focus group such. I hope that the CEA publish a summary of the feedback soon so it can be discussed in a more open way. As a reminder, you can find listings for subtitled cinema (as well as audio described screenings for those with visual impairments) in the UK at Your Local Cinema. If a subtitled screening is not taking place near you and you own a smart phone then why not try these options. […]
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