Ideas

Most movie theaters don't want ANY mobile phones in some places it is grounds to kick you out.

That or have a blocking device in place.

getting past that- don't most also have to offer a device to accomodate the hard of hearing? ADA and all in the US

Well I know some offer it. But, I am not sure if it is a requirement.

The lighted phone will be a distraction, methinks. People (without knowing the valid reason for having the phone on) will be asking the users to turn it off, please turn it off...

How about merging an idea that was proposed for the next voting round? Have a panel above or below the screen that displays the CC in a specific colour, the HI will be able to wear filtered glasses that make the words appear.

I like PeeJayEl's idea. No more cell phones in theatre's.

according to Americans with Disability, it is... reasonable accomodations must be met

I too am with PeeJayEl: An excellent adjustment.

It is too far to shift one's gaze from the movie to their lap, so they would have to hold the phone in front of the screen (to the side). Text on the phone is too small for that, and it will disrupt others.

Agree with PeeJayEl and Summertime

@Kevin- it's illegal for commercial entities to jam cellphones as far as I understand the legislation. And seeing that 90% of the populace has a cellphone these days, i'm not aware of any theater that would kick someone out for having one on them as long as it were silenced. They would do so only in the event that it became distracting to other movie viewers.

@PeeJayE- good call on the black screen background to make it less disruptive for other watchers.

@tlyden- i dunno. the attendants at the two movie theaters where I've asked about this had no clue.

@Richexclaim - the argument that watching closed captions on a phone would be banned for it being a distraction doesn't fly. if theaters are truly mandated to offer some type of device that displays lighted text in a readable format for deaf viewers, then this would be susceptible to the same objection.

to all- i've googled around on movie theater accessibility and I've found no conclusive standard that everyone is using leading me to think that there is in fact room for innovation here using cellphones as the delivery mechanism. I'm assuming that if the ADA does in fact require equal treatment that currently most theaters are looking the other way. If this is true then this fact actually makes this more compelling. Think about it: a way for theaters to be compliant at zero hardware cost to them. The business would have minimal overhead costs comprised mostly of serving closed captions via webpage that displays synchronized text via SMIL or some flash-based mechanism. Host it on utility-based computing service like EC2 or one of the others so there's no hardware to maintain. Just need a way to convert a subset of the existing body of subtitles/closed captions into the right format and launch a beta. Marketing of this service would be fairly straight-forward too since the target audience is so clearly defined and the use case for the potential customer is clear.

sean

It should be fairly easy to have the subtitles 'hidden' except when you have special glasses.
That might work
Your idea seems to farfetched to me.
Tommy

I agree that there's a need, but I'm not sure any of the suggestions yet are the right answer. A lot of issues with the original idea have been raised, and at the least they'll need some thought to solve.

I can't see how you could hide the subtitles to anyone not wearing the glasses. It might be possible for filter glasses to pick meaning out of a jumble, but that would surely be distracting for other cinema-goers. I'm open to being persuaded though.

@PhilipH - i don't see the colored glasses suggestion as a real option (i'm not aware of glasses that could be cheaply made that let you see something that's not in the normal visible spectrum- maybe i'm wrong though). My point was that if theaters currently have to make available a reader device that displays lighted text to hearing impaired watchers that request it (and that's a big "if" since i don't know if this is true- cursory research has yielded no conclusive answer)- then it would suffer the same objection as the solution I'm suggesting, rendering it an invalid reason for discounting this idea.

There are admittedly some open questions on this concept and I've done only scan research because frankly we're slammed with our real startup right now.

@vanhees- i rarely understand your comments and this one is no exception.

Having dated a deaf girl, I know that they don't perceive this problem as much as you mght think- they can lip read but solutions do exist:

http://microvision.b...earing-impaired.html

there are a lot of others like "Read Window captioning"

But apparently enough have complained:
http://www.hearingex...ange.com/blogs/?p=83
http://www.hearingex...ange.com/blogs/?p=84

this seems like an overkill solution, and again, how is there enough demand to pay for it without being prohibitive?
ESPECIALLY when they have their own solution:
http://www.fomdi.com- but then again, maybe this is your resource for developing the idea?

how about a crowdsourced work page for deaf people to watch all the LOVELY youtube and privately produced crap on the internet?

oh wait, they are working on that too..
http://www.hearingex...ange.com/blogs/?p=90

Filtered glasses is a good idea.

The problem with mobile phone based text is you can't see the screen while you're looking at your phone; can't see the action while you're reading the text, so you can't really enjoy the movie...

@tylden- i read all the pages you linked to. It certainly sounds like the hearing exchange lady feels there is a problem to me...

the "rear window" solution is interesting but still involves costly modification to the theater itself. Same thing with the addition of a greenscreen up front displaying open captions. The fomdi.com site appears to be just a way to locate theaters that have open captioned showtimes, not an actual solution to the movie watching experience for the hearing impaired.

so far everything I've seen indicates that:
a) the opportunity is validated because there is in fact an issue with deaf people being currently unserved in their movie watching options in most theaters
b) there has been legislation passed in places and compliance issues now face theaters that will force them to make changes necessary to accommodate their deaf viewers
c) current options for meeting compliance will cost theaters money

The method I'm proposing requires zero cost to the theater. They will do all the marketing for this because it satisfies their compliance issues. The analog here is a guy we know that started a business selling the ability for restaurants to avoid purchasing those local area pagers they give patrons while they're waiting for a table- instead they use a web-based system and SMS the patron's cell. They then have opt-in ability to run loyalty programs after the event... the point is, they avert sunk costs like purchasing, learning and maintaining new hardware. Same concept. Proven model.

@Dracolith - provided you can hold the phone up in front of you in a way that doesn't distract other viewers, I would think it's no more distracting "field-of-vision-wise" than a viewer glancing down to read subtitles at the bottom of the screen. The only way to truly know this is to just try it in a theater and I have not yet done this.

how is there enough demand to pay for it without being prohibitive?

"provided you can hold the phone up in front of you in a way that doesn't distract other viewers, I would think it's no more distracting "field-of-vision-wise" than a viewer glancing down to read subtitles at the bottom of the screen. The only way to truly know this is to just try it in a theater and I have not yet done this."

No way! As I said before.

Can a person actually use a cellphone to read text during a movie? I think I'd get a headache (different brightness, distance). Despite theatre owners getting nervous, and copyrighted dialog issues, I do love the idea.

@Gord- that's a good point. i don't know whether constantly flipping depth of field would give the viewer a headache. again, won't know until we experiment in an actual movie watching situation.

@Summertime - please take your wet blanket elsewhere.

@tylden - the only overhead in this business would be hosting fees. using virtual infrastructure like EC2 or a leased colo box means there are no sunk costs for hardware. it would take less than 100 people buying one movie per month @ $1/movie to break even. As mentioned, it's a highly niche audience so selling targeted ads for a deaf audience is compelling. Cost of marketing is transferred to the theaters- they promote it as it satisfies their compliance issues.