HLAA – Montgomery County Chapter

We went to the Regal in Plymouth Meeting today to try out the Sony closed captioning system in use at Regal Theatres, directed there by the wealth of information on CaptionFish. The movie was Ice Age – Continental Drift, but I’m commenting on the Sony system more than the movie.

The Sony system uses special eyeglasses that display the text. I was concerned about “accommodation”, the need to focus your eyes on the text close to you alternately with the distant screen. This turned out not to be a problem, as the Sony system uses a holographic system, the operation of which I don’t understand, that displays the text virtually at a distance.

There is a receiver module that you wear on a neck strap, connected by a thin cable to the glasses.

When we bought our tickets and requested the CC device, they were promptly provided, without any sort of security deposit required, but with only minimal instruction as to its use.

The Sony glasses weight about 3 ounces. Doesn’t sound like much, but my own (tri-focal) glasses weigh about an ounce, and of course I needed both of them, total 4 ounces, a rather clumsy collection of hardware on my face and ears. Fortunately we did not choose the 3-D version; that would have required a third set of glasses!

Apart from those comments, the system worked fairly well. It took a bit of getting used to the fact that the captioning moves if you move your head. You learn to position the captioning in the dark space below the screen.

I learned from the Sony data sheet (link below) that you can adjust the virtual focus distance and the brightness of the text; this was not mentioned when I got the glasses..

Here’s a link to information on the Sony glasses:
Sony Closed Caption

Also not mentioned at check-out was the audio function of the system. You can plug headphones, and presumably a neckloop, into the receiver module, and control its volume.
About Ice Age, I guess it was aimed at a somewhat younger audience. Much of the imagery seemed to be aimed at showing off 3-D effects. There have been contemporary animated movies that I would watch again, e.g. Up, but this one is not in that category. (Here a special plug for hearing-impaired viewers: The Triplets of Belleville, an animated film by Sylvain Chomet [he’s French] that I’ve watched many times. It has and needs no captioning.)

Nowe I’m looking forward to trying out the CaptiView system at regional theaters. Also Rear Window, although according to CaptionFish, I’ll have to travel further for this one.

Don Groff

Update 7/27/12

Captioning guru Alan Kutner tells me that the Sony glasses have a slot that will accept the filter for 3-D viewing, so a third set of glasses is not needed.

Thanks, Alan

There is a nice review of current assistive listening devices in the Hearing Review journal, which you can rea online at

http://www.hearingreview.com/issues/articles/2012-02_06.asp

It does not, however, pay very much attention to conventional large area loops and conventional T-coil technology, except for the very last line!

I just ordered another DVD course from The Great Courses . We’ve been through a number of their offerings, and have found them to be of high quality, and well worth the $75 or so that they cost, at least when they are discounted 70% from list price, which happens regularly.
With one major reservation; apparently none of their offerings is captioned. I would judge that a significant fraction of their market is like me, hard of hearing, and would greatly benefit from captioning.
In an e-mail exchange with the publisher some time ago I raised this issue. Their response I would call pretty lame; “Spend another $25 to buy the transcript of the course”. They would have me follow the text in my lap, glancing up occasionally to see the finely crafted video presentation.
The publisher claimed that they don’t get many complaints about the lack of captioning. I hope that this posting may lead potential customers to weigh in on the matter.

MontCo member Elaine Goldberg got her cochlear implant on December 19.

You can read about her experience on her blog:  http://myciadventure.blogspot.com/