Over thirty years ago, WGBH, Boston's public broadcasting station, revolutionized television and video for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing by providing program dialogue as text or "captions" on the lower third of the television screen.
WGBH then worked to develop a technological tool to enable people who are blind or visually impaired access to visual images. The result was the introduction of Descriptive Video Service® or DVS® in 1990. DVS provides narrated descriptions of key visual elements during pauses in the soundtrack of a program. Together these two technologies enable thirty-six million people to fully enjoy television programming independently.
Building on its past success in pioneering access solutions, in 1992 WGBH began researching captioning and description in movie theaters to enable independent access to films. WGBH successfully developed two innovative technologies that make it possible to provide closed captions and descriptive narration for deaf and blind patrons, without the need for special prints or screenings or altering the experience for the general audience. Collectively these systems are known as Motion Picture Access or MoPix.
The patented Rear Window® Captioning System displays reversed captions on a light-emitting diode (LED) text display which is mounted in the rear of a theater. Deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons use transparent acrylic panels attached to their seats to reflect the captions so that they appear superimposed on the movie screen. The reflective panels are portable and adjustable, enabling the caption user to sit anywhere in the theater. The Rear Window System was co-developed by WGBH and Rufus Butler Seder of Boston, Mass.
DVS Theatrical® delivers descriptive narration via infrared or FM listening systems, enabling blind and visually impaired moviegoers to hear the descriptive narration on headsets without disturbing other audience members. The descriptions provide narrated information about key visual elements such as actions, settings, and scene changes, making movies more meaningful to people with vision loss. These technologies have been available in specialty theaters—such as large format movie theaters and theme parks—for several years. Digital Theater Systems (DTS) of Agoura Hills, California enabled WGBH to bring these technologies to conventional movie theaters.
DTS is a worldwide leader in digital sound for feature films, providing multi-channel digital audio on CD-ROM. A reader attached to the film projector reads a timecode track printed on the film and signals the DTS player to play the audio synchronous to the film. For the Motion Picture Access efforts, DTS adapted its technology to include the caption and descriptive narration tracks on a separate CD-ROM, which plays alongside the other discs in the DTS player. In turn the player sends the captions to the LED display and the descriptive narration to the infrared or FM emitter.
In November 1997, closed captions and descriptive narration were available for the first time, as part of a regular feature film presentation in a movie theater. The Rear Window Captioning System and DVS Theatrical made their debut at the General Cinema Theater in Sherman Oaks, California, during the November 1997 presentation of the Universal Pictures film, The Jackal. General Cinema Theatres, Universal Pictures, Digital Theater Systems, and WGBH collaborated to make this historic event possible. This pioneering effort has led to accessible presentations of other major motion pictures—including Titanic, Star Wars: Episodes I and 2, Toy Story 2, The Green Mile, Stuart Little, Spider-Man, Charlie's Angels, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Shrek, Monsters, Inc., Chicago, Finding Nemo and many more—in time for their theatrical releases.
Based on the tremendous industry and consumer response to the Rear Window Captioning System and DVS Theatrical, theatre circuits have begun installing these technologies in theaters nationwide as well as in Canada. The Rear Window system and DVS Theatrical are already available at select AMC Theatres, Crown Theatres, Loews Cineplex, Mann Theatres, National Amusements Theatres and IMAX Theatres in or near Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Minneapolic, Phoenix, Boston and Milwaukee, in addition to other locations across the country. Viacom's Famous Players theatre chain has installed thirty-one systems in four provinces, and will be installing additional systems in the coming months.
In the meantime, WGBH is working with all the major studios and exhibitors to encourage them to adopt these technologies and make closed captions and descriptive narration available for even more films on an ongoing basis.
We also encourage consumers to contact the trade organizations which represent theater chains and movie studios-- the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) — to let them know there is an audience of movie fans eager to enjoy films on the big screen.
John Fithian, President
National Association of Theater Owners (NATO)
4605 Lankershim Blvd. #340
North Hollywood, CA 91602
(818) 506-1778
(818) 506-4382 Fax
E-mail: nato@mindspring.com
Dan Glickman, President and CEO
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
15503 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, California 91436
(818) 995-6600
Early activities for Motion Picture Access were funded by a grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, a division of the U.S. Department of Education. The research and development was guided by disabled consumers and representatives from the motion picture industry, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the National Association of Theater Owners, the International Theatre Equipment Association, Digital Theater Systems, General Cinema Theatres and Boston Light & Sound, Inc.
For its efforts to make movie theaters accessible to all moviegoers, WGBH received the 1995 Ken Mason Inter-Society Award and the 1999 Excellence in Access Award from the Association of Access Engineering Specialists.
Michael Savage
Media Access Group at WGBH
818 562-3344 (voice)
The Media Access Group at WGBH
One Guest Street
Boston, MA 02135
617 300-3400 (voice/TTY)
617 300-1035 (fax)
access@wgbh.org
