![]() If you were going to find closed captioning glasses anywhere in the United States, you’d expect to find them in the heart of theater, on Broadway. ![]() They simply need to pick the date and time of a show they’d like to see, book a set of Smart Caption Glasses, and then sit anywhere in the theater without worrying whether the seat will detract from the experience. With closed caption glasses, deaf and hard of hearing patrons enjoy greater flexibility in the performances they’re able to attend. ![]() While Smart Caption Glasses are allowing many patrons to experience the magic of theater for the first time, others who suffered hearing loss later in life are also getting to reclaim a favorite pastime. While Suffolk admits that it’s not yet a perfect 100%, he’s proud of the improvements they’ve made using closed caption glasses at London Theatre. Now that the theater offers Smart Caption Glasses, they’ve increased the number of scheduled performances that are accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing to 80%. Most theaters only offer a handful of accessible plays each season.Īccording to Suffolk, the National Theatre only offered two or three captioned performances per season, only about 5% of their schedule, before they had closed caption glasses. Not only was the actual experience of attending a play severely hindered for the deaf and hard of hearing, but opportunities to attend were limited, too. It’s this type of experience that, O’Dell says, creates “that sense of isolation deaf people, like me, experience.” He wound up missing several jokes, while surrounded by a laughing crowd. He thought he could get by, but he didn’t. One National Theatre patron, Liam O’Dell, described a situation in which he ended up sitting further away from the stage than he wanted for a comedy performance. As a result, many patrons missed out on both nuanced and major aspects of a show. Others were left with no other option than to dart their eyes back and forth between the performance and an open captioning screen located on the side of the stage. Some would only sit in certain sections, close enough to the stage in order to hear the actors or read their lips. Before the development of Smart Caption Glasses in London’s National Theatre, hard of hearing and deaf theater goers had limited options. Hearing loss affects one in six people in the U.K. Closed Caption Glasses Make Theater More Accessible They can set closed captioning to scroll or appear in time with the performance. They’re able to select the placement, text color, background color, and size of the captions they see throughout the play. Patrons use a handheld device to remotely control the glasses. They’re light-weight and easily adjusted to fit any person, even those who wear eyeglasses. In addition, the glasses are designed to be comfortable, easy to use, and customizable. The glasses project text, using high fidelity LED lights, which appear crisp and clear, even in the oddest of lighting conditions. If an actor drops a line, the closed caption glasses won’t deliver it to the patron either. It also recognizes details of the performance such as lighting, timing, and stage cues, to deliver dynamic captions that are accurate and in-sync with the performance. This technology uses the transcripts of a performance paired with intelligent speech following software that’s able to recognize spoken words. Smart Caption Glasses deliver closed captioning to theater patrons by means of AR that displays a synchronized transcript of dialogue, and a description of sounds from the production, directly onto the lenses. The Technology Behind Closed Caption Glasses The National Theatre’s Technical Director, Jonathan Suffolk, partnered with Epson and Accenture to create the Smart Caption Glasses that are now giving all audience members the freedom to enjoy performances the way they’re intended to be experienced. London’s National Theatre has made their performances more accessible to deaf and hard of hearing patrons with closed caption glasses using augmented reality. One of the oldest art forms is embracing some of the newest technology.
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