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(Intro Music)
Hi this is James Gardiner the CineTechGeek
and today I have a special presentation. I have put together a
whole sequence of videos on accessibility in cinema.
I want to start it off with a presentation covering
what's to come in terms of
what videos are to come
and also just answering all the questions that you might have
all in one quick presentation and to follow up with the videos to
back-up information with more visual presentation etc.
so let's get into it
okay, what I am going to cover
in this presentation ...
what does accessibility actually mean in cinema
Why is it so important.. of course!
Definitions of what
different types of accessibility
technologies exist. We also have a nameing convention to help
cinema owners with their DCPs
there's also a whitepaper
by Charles Flynn of DCinemaTools.com. A must read if you'll
interested in this.
I'll go over that quickly
Then I'll talk about the presentation that was done at CinemaCom 2013
and I've recorded that completely
and.. uh...
it is a very good presentation
It goes into different aspects of the technology presented from each of
the vendors
and then
after those videos I have actually produced some
basically informative videos
to help people uh...
get an idea of how some of these
products work and have a will actually
work for you in the cinema.
And finally i'll get a little bit more technical
and
talk about
what locations
have access to these accessibility technologies
or how you may get them if your a cinema owner
and you want to take advantage of these
technologies
"The meaning of accessibility in the cinema domain"
well basically
it's technologies and processes that help people with disabilities enjoy
cinema. It's quite simple
now this involves uh...
open and closed captions
text is display on screen with open captions.
... so everyone can see the text on the screen and closed captions is
captions but are
personalized and only that person
who requires captions can see captions while other people will
just see it normally (with no captions) on screen
now of course people who require this are
deaf or hearing-impaired customers.
These technologies are also used for foreign-language presentations.
For example, captions in foreign language films
are Open Captions used
as subtitles
Closed captions can be used for personal subtitles as well
And secondly we have the other Hearing Impaired (HI)
and Vision Impaired (VI)
audio tracks
These are 2 extra audio tracks that come with a DCP
Usually just one moment track and they are used for, as you can see, the
hearing impaired to help
them understand dialog, basically a clear very
centre channel or dialog channel so that the dialog is very clean
and the Visually Impaired (VI)
narrator track basically helps describe whats going on, on the screen
so..
if the viewers eye sight is not very good,
it can help to explain things that they many not be able to see on the screen
"So why is this so important"
many countries have legislation and legal issues appearing
Randy Smith the moderator in the following video, he'll cover that
mainly for the US
but it's happening all over the world.
Older loyal patrons developing accessibility issues..
Example of this is the initial walkman and iPod generation are haveing a
lot more hearing issues because those devices damageing there hearing.
They are very
loyal
cinema goers and we want to keep them
coming so it's definitely a technology to offer them.
Untapped consumer base
like the deaf and hard of hearing .. it's more accessible to them
now.
May be cinemas could open their market to that
social segment
or social network
because it's easy to market to them as they are very much into
the social networking etc. So you can get on to those
systems and and it's easy to market to them and hopefully bring them
into the cinema potentially as a new market.
As what I was saying saying, digital has made it much easier
to service
these clients
people with.. disabilities
and.. for example one device can
cover many screens rather than traditionally with film
an Open Caption system could only be used on one screen
now digital brings the opportunity for Open Captions onto all screens
or the hearing-impaired systems are making use of
networks.. so you might have
8 hearing-impaired
systems or units
but thay could possibly be used in every cinema/screen rather than having it
stick to one cinema/screen it
provides better accessibility to
the whole
cinema and or also it's more likely that the client
with a disability can come
and it doesn't really matter
at what time he comes or what session as he can go to any session so
that's fantastic
uh...
CinemaCon
now this is very important ..
Accessibility presentation that I recorded.. it was the busiest and
um... that was the only presentation where is completely full was standing
room only
which gives you an indication of how important this issue is
in terms of
uh...
the legislation and legal issues and the fact that there is an opportunity
here
uh... for
opening up to new markets. So it's a very important product and if you
own a cinema
you really should be on top of this in uh... hope you enjoy my videos to
keep you up to speed.
Now the DCP naming convention there is a website called
digitalcinemanamingconvention.com
and it's basically a website which
uh... tells you what is the accepted standards or is supported by the
ISDCF committee
to help people
name the DCP/files so operators can identify the files correctly before presentation in the
cinema.. bcause there are so many different versions
and you need to
know exactly what all
the letters mean so you can picked the right file and
you know you've got the right file for the right thing in that's just the
information, how to identify what is in the file that you get the
DCP
uh... that you get so
uh... very good website
to look at so I encourage you to check that out, I'll probably do a whole video on that at a later date
in terms of more aspects of the naming convention.
but uh... yes
Charles Flynn ... amazing contribution to this is his
WHITE PAPER... that you can see that
"Accessibility to Inclusion, a White Paper" it's a must read if you want to
know more about this. He goes in to a lot of detail
about how different systems work in the
advantages and disadvantages so it's must read if you are looking at that
uh...
uh... it also includes a detailed comparison
uh...I have a lot of images in uh... there is a lot of info from the vendors
and...in the demonstration. they talk about the products but he does a nice
grid of the differences between each of them so
uh... fantastic for that and a must read if you're interested by one of the the
solutions currently available so definitely go get that if you're into buying
uh...
or
thinking about purchasing any of these technologies
um following
this video
is the
CinemaCon 2013 video that I recorded for your
uh... information so you can get up to speed quickly, it is a very interesting
video
uh... and basically covers everything you would want to know
.. about Accessibility
I'll go into a little bit more detail in my covering of it
I hope you enjoy the videos.. They are quite long but very informative
uh...
these videos cover the
legislative and legal issues uh... surrounding accessibility mainly in the US
that is where CinemaCon is
but it's an example of what's going on around the world and in terms of
similar problems uh... also appearing in different parts of the world so it's
a good thing to be on top of that so prepare for what might happen in
if you're in other parts of the world
uh...
and after that
uh... after
uh...
the main presentation you've got the vendors
Doremi
USL and Sony
which we do a quick presentation of each of their technologies in this area
Finally after those videos .. I have actually been making some videos on
this over the years.. I will um...
have a closeup look
at
many of the technologies displayed. An extra one .. "rear window" which
isn't represented in
that set of videos but of got some video on that
uh... I don't talk over it, it is just images ..
close-up images which
show the equipment
and if you are a cinema owner you can see how it works
or is serviced. How it works with your clients and with uh...
patrons who want to see
and uh... how you deal with it with batteries and charging
uh... stations etc so
uh... that will help you get an idea of those technologies without having to
travel all the way to a
convention for example
now let's have a look at what locations and films are available in
these technologies Open Captions / Closed Captions / HI / VI
just on the
open captions side and subtitles
basically
any current SMS (Screen Management System/Player) with Series 1 or series 2 projector
in a cinema today
is capable of displaying open captions and of course subtitles. Open captions
and subtitles are basically the same thing
open captions are subtitles in the same language
as the film
there are sometimes descriptive additions to open
captions compared to subtitles.
Subtitles is a translation of what's been said
while open captions can actually have a little bit more information in it
but today
if you are a digital cinema you can display open captions and
subtitles
and that means 90% of all screens in the primary markets are already
converted so 90%
of the screens out there
you should expect to be able to do this.
This is the important part. All six studios are making available all
content with
OCAP / CCAP / HI and HI. It's an amazing job getting this done
It's a lot of work
This is "region dependent" meaning that for example
of course
translations have to be done
uh... the spelling issues there is lots of extra work that has to be done per
location which can delay some of this happening
uh... so it might be a little delayed but it should be made available and
they make best efforts to make it available to all regions
but predominately the main regions where it's English
you know.. the US, Canada
uh... UK, Australia for example
very available pretty much on released all these things are available
on release date
Here is an audio I recorded from Randy Smith after
his presentation
about what the US and
Canada .. so just listen to that now..
The top sixty APAA Studios
about 100% of their wide releases come with captions now and uh... a little less than
that come what the uh... descriptive narration for the blind, but they are all coming on
board now and as you see the wide releases your going to see in first-run
theaters almost all of them are captioned.
Thanks Randy..
let's have a look
at the vision impaired and
hearing-impaired aspect of this
now uh...
just so we know vision impaired or VI actually stands for vision impaired
narrative description
the two letter acronym actually meant something a little bit
more than that just vision impaired
uh... it is important to understand uh...
That..
vision impaired narrative description explains what you are going to
hear on that track. It's a description of what's going on
over the top of the actual track as a vision impaired person
you may not be able to see exactly what's going on, so this helps you with
some audio to back it up
so uh...
The studios are doing a great job at this they are making
pretty much
HI and VI in all major markets available on the release date.
um... now for the technologists to do this.. it's actually pretty much the same stuff that
was carried over from
the film days um...
so
the videos following will cover that from the different vendors.
It's all very similar apart from the new wireless network features
for the audio
uh... has
made it more cost effective
but it's working very well um... now the studios are also working on trying to make
this available for trailers but trailers have
a lot of tight production requirements
so don't expect all trailers to do this but they are going to try and make all trailers
available .. that would be great too..
so really in this area there are no real problems.
let's have a look at closed captions and open captions this
area is a little bit more difficult
uh...
it's more problematic, more
difficult.. people have different sight requirements.. it's a little
bit more like 3D which has problems for reasons
we have come to understand..
closed captions / open captions has a similar sort of problem that
let's have a look at the investment so a lot of the cinema chains have put a lot
of money investing in trying to
um... answer these requirements
they have installed al lot of these personal hearing impaired / vision impaired systems
and closed captioned systems these personal ones
and to a degree its never been so good for accessibility because these new systems
..... these technologies ... are usually
installed cinema complex wide so it's not
tied to a particular one or two screens
it's usually for the whole cinema (or can be) and
typically makes it accessible to any session at any time
people with these accessibility issues
are now just part of any other
customer down to the cinema
there's a real difference and that's fantastic because
uh... really it encourages
a family, for example, coming along and one of the family members
has a disability
and they can typically just join in with the rest of them... that is really good.
that's because it's a wireless based system.. You might have a
personal closed caption system and it can be used in any cinema
in the whole complex because it is using a network
uh... system to get the data to it .. so that's really good
Great new technology
um... like i said uh... customers can participate with general audience and
reduce the need for special screenings
so that's a big advantage to
cinema owners because
uh... special screenings require
special work .. special work is more time, more time is more costs.
so ...
(Cinema owner) can purchased a solution to control their costs in that area.
Cinema owners are happy with that BUT
there's a problem still
uh... closed caption is not "optimal"
like 3D
it's not suitable for all
uh... I'll go into it a little bit more later but.. yes.. a lot of people
the closed caption devices work fine but for some people it just does not work for
them , their eyes cannot deal with the property.
and I will talk more about this in a following slide
so at the end of the day, we still need open captions
uh... and this is where it is
becoming a problem
Cinema have invested a lot in the personal accessibility
systems
They don't see a need for open captions anymore as they have already made large
investments in these personal captioning systems
now the deaf
and hearing-impaired community
uh...
want to bring back
open captions as personal closed caption systems are not liked by all
Why is this.. Well the simplest explanation for this is
the picture on the screen which is 10 or more meters out in front of
you
and the closed captions
displayed on the personal devices
are completely different focal length and what I mean by that
is ... the goose-neck ones its about half a meter in front of you
or in the glasses type, it's
projected about ..
it appears about three meters in front of you.
That is very different from
focusing on the screen
to look at the screen and focusing on the text.. So your eyes are
moving backwards and forwards the the focalpoint ...
trying to focus on here and focus on there
and that can cause eye strain.
Some people just cannot deal with this their eyes
cannot deal with that sort of requirement.
So they can't take a lot of advantage from these personal
caption systems.
So there is still a need
for open captions.
so
this is where the problem is. A
compromise is required because
the cinema owners position is that they have invested this money to give you a solution
that should make you happy
but there are some people for which it is not suitable for
...
there's a bit of a
requirement here. So what's the solution? Well
the cinema owners have done a large investment and it's never been
better to a degree for accessibility but we still have a little bit of a problem
here with
people who require open captions.
and so the solution in my opinion is
for those communities to
pool together and have arranged open caption screenings.
Cinema want you to come..
If you say that you going to bring
a certain number of people they of course will facilitate your requirements and
put open captions on.
How do we get those open captions? And how available are they?
But finally on the slide
uh...
my hearing is actually getting worse as i get older
and
I know I will likely require open captions
and i think the very loyal
older community of movie-goers
uh... it's a growing market and so it's definitely uh... something we need to
keep an eye on.
Open captions availability?
well studios .. I have spoken to the studios
about this issue and
they want as many people as possible see their films.
Obviously this is what they want
and that's why they make OCAP/CCAP/HI/VI
available
now uh... where is the open caption data.. well it's actually there as well
it's actually created as part of
the workflow to make the closed captions.
as you're getting
the transcript and your translating it into another language so obviously
you would need
the same sort of metadata
that would be required for open captions
now
these uh...
open caption files are NOT typically distributed in a DCP
because they have
cause confusion in the past with operators putting the wrong DCPs on screen.
But they are
generally available on request
from the studios now this is only one .. I have confirmed this work
flow with one studio
It is as I expected
in making the DCPs part of the workflow is of course making the closed captions
and obviously
in that work flow
they do make open captions as well but they do not ship it with the files/DCP but they
do make it available as a supplemental package DCP.
When you get a a film it's usually an Original Vision DCP
which is the original version
as it is
released to the vast majority of cinemas
and you can get supplemental package DCPs which
you can add on top of that DCP to give you a different language
uh... etc or give you a subtitle for a certain language. Of course this is
also available
just to add
Open Captions
this supplemental package which turns on open captions is very small
it could be emailed,
ftp or downloaded on the internet.. So I
expect
the studios are or will be doing this soon I have not confirmed this with them
but they came make
these VF DCPs available
but
this is very much affected by region
there are requirements for changing of spelling and
other bits and pieces
which can cause this to slow down or some regions to haven't come to terms
with all these new processes in digital cinema yet.
But you know .. I
would ask your local representation for the studios
uh... and
if you keep asking, it with come, if there is a need, it
will come.
As I said before
the studios want as many people as possible to see their films
and if people were asking to see it in these formats
they will make it available.
That's pretty much
a total overview
of the story of accessibility in cinema.
Following this video there are eleven or twelve videos or more
that cover the presentation
and also a closer look at all of the different technologies that I could get
video on. I hope you enjoy them.
This is James Gardiner the CineTechGeek
and yes thank you for listening to this special series on
accessibility. After this I will have some other
aspects of of cinema
so I hope you enjoy all these videos that I was lucky to be able to
make at CinemaCon
2013 this year.
Bye for now.