AMC to Add Onscreen Captions at Some Locations

[James Wyrembelski]

There's a small theatre in these parts that has done open captions for both show times on Mondays for quite some time now.

Before 2020 I had thought about copying that idea. Our theatre has been closed on Mondays for at least the last 20 years. I figured couldn't hurt to try it since it's always been closed on that day anyway. Although, I'm now currently closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Hopefully in spring next year I'll throw Tuesdays back on and perhaps have open caption Mondays.

[Andrew Thomas]

It is pretty amusing to see the world passing people by and they don't even realize it

[Steve Guttag]

You are certainly entitled to your opinions and even your amusements. I, personally, think you are dead wrong and open captions will never become the standard of move going nor would it increase attendance overall and would, quite probably reduce it, on balance.

I think the best form of open captions was the rear window version (LED boards behind the audience where plexi reflectors were used to see them during a movie and allow for superimposing the words on screen, if desired/needed). It was the best of all worlds. They were not distracting for those that don't desire captions (99.999%) yet were available on 100% of the shows for those that want them (or need them) and, it allowed one's eyes to always focus at a similar distance (closed caption devices have one looking not only up/down but also having to focus near and far...something that gets more difficult with age).

Caption Eyewear is extremely awkward and more so with someone that wears glasses plus the captions move about as one moves their head.

For those with multi-lingual requirements, with the rear window system, multiple LED boards could be used and the patron merely point their reflector at the desired language. It has just about all of the benefits of open captions without the negative presentation of having captions on-screen.

[Steve Guttag]

duplicate post.

[Marcel Birgelen]

You are certainly entitled to your opinions and even your amusements. I, personally, think you are dead wrong and open captions will never become the standard of move going nor would it increase attendance overall and would, quite probably reduce it, on balance.

It's a bit of a cultural thing... Many markets around the globe that run a lot of foreign language films (e.g. most what Hollywood produces) and are too small for large-scale dubbing, have been used to "open captions" for decades. Obviously, here the primary target audience isn't those with a hearing disability, it's simply done this way, so the general public can follow the dialog. Those same people grew up with those same on-screen captions on TV. It could be argued that many people learned a lot about the English language this way, including a lot of the bad stuff.

So, a Dutch person visiting a local cinema would simply expect to see subtitles all the time, as long as he/she isn't watching a Dutch production. A German entering a local cinema would expect to see no subtitles at all and would expect the show to be dubbed in German if it was a foreign language film. You'll see that German movie-going public will generally be more averse towards open captions. Those "subtitles" weren't there before, so why are they there now?

In that regard, I do think that the way people grew up is very much also what they expect. Since the main-stream market for foreign language films in the U.S. is marginal, most patrons visiting those cinemas are never confronted to "subtitles" in any form, so they don't expect them to be there. I can completely understand how people would consider them a distraction, because I myself also prefer to watch movies without any kind of open captioning present, as long as I can follow the dialog.

Any form of cultural change usually takes a while, but if people are playing content on their TVs with open captioning more and more, then they will probably be more tolerable to seeing them in the cinema too. That doesn't mean that they necessarily should be there though, the lack of things that could be considered distractions should be one of the major differences between viewing a movie at home and on the big screen at the cinema.

But maybe this whole concept of open captioning could become a part of a trend where the traditional multiplex still makes some sense: Playing different versions of the same movie for different audiences. I don't think that this is a bad thing. Having a version with open captions available will cater to a select group of people that otherwise would probably skip the experience, as long as the "classic" option is still available for people to see.

What the mid- and long-term trend will be, we'll see... I hope we'll still be able to watch movies "without subtitles" in the future though...

[Steve Guttag]

A key concept of the movie going experience is the suspension of disbelief. Having captions being omnipresent destroys that. What is or should be considered a cultural norm at-home does not and often should not apply in a public or professional venue. The goal of cinema should not be to mimic the home experience but to surpass it and provide an experience that is on the large scale and exceeds the home experience. Is the theatre patron just there to watch/listen to the story or are they going out to be entertained or to leave behind their day-to-day world for a few hours?

Technically, captions/subtitles on a TV are entirely different, in experience to a large theatrical one too. Even with large home screens, 99% of the time, the entire image (and then some) is in one's field of view. The captions are as front and center as the actors. In a cinema, particularly large and "PLF" ones, that is not the case. So, the captions become this distracting wind-storm at the bottom of the screen that, again, reinforces that one is watching a movie and what they are seeing isn't real (for the moment).

Again, I think the "rear-window" concept/technology really is the best merging of caption and possibly subtitle needs while maintaining an immersive experience for the overwhelming majority of theatre going patrons.

Remember too, there is a difference between captions (aiding the deaf/hard of hearing) and subtitles (language translation). Both groups have their specific needs to enjoy the movie and they are often not the same group. Rear Window could allow for both groups to be satisfied (multiple panels).

[Marcel Birgelen]

Yeah, the terms captions (a textual representation of the dialog) and subtitles (a translated version of the dialog) are often used as if they're interchangeable, I'm guilty of that myself. Technically, there usually is little to no difference between both obviously. I wonder if there is a proper "collective term" for both subtitling and captions.

I agree that "captions" are more distracting on a big screen than on your average TV. The most distracting kind are those used for 3D shows, not only do they almost always suffer from almost unavoidable ghosting and they often run awry with the depth cues of the actual scene, especially those with a lot of negative parallax.

I've never ever used a rear window captioning system myself, so I cannot compare how distracting this is, compared to on-screen subtitling.

As rear window captioning systems are pretty rare around here, it would be interesting to see how the movie-going public reacts to something like that as a replacement of the ever-present subtitles. Scalability of such systems is also an interesting aspect. I guess captions/subtitles on-screen make more sense if e.g. 80% of your patrons expect to see subtitles, compared to situations, where just a handful of the people in the room would use such systems.

[Randy Stankey]

I have a question.

In most captioned TV shows, there will be some text that describes the sounds or music of the program at the bottom of the screen. Something like [DRAMATIC MUSIC] or [GUNSHOTS]. Many times, the action (gunfire) happens in the background or at one side of the frame. With the caption at the bottom of the screen, it is often hard to connect the on-screen action with the caption. The timing of the captions is often off, too. The caption will appear before the shots and may still be visible for several seconds after the action is over. That's confusing to me, who can hear, so I can only assume that it can be even more confusing to a non-hearing person.

I know that the timing and X-Y position of text can be controlled when the captions are created but I don't see it actually happen very often.

My question is whether it's possible to make the caption text to appear superimposed over the action.

For example, if somebody shoots a gun, is it possible to make text like "Click-Click-BANG!" appear in the spot where the gun is fired. If there is dramatic music in the background, is it possible to make text like "Dramatic Music" hover over the actors' heads?

Now, I don't want to see a TV show that looks like those "Pop Up Videos" that we saw in the mid 1990s. There are just some times where I think it would be better to see caption text appear in relation to the on-screen action instead of appearing only at the bottom. It would happen only a handful of times during an entire program.

I think that such a thing would be technically possible, today, but I'm also pretty sure that somebody would have to manually determine where the caption should be placed and the figure out the timing on a per-frame basis.

I'm guessing that it can be done but the time, labor and expense of doing it outweighs the benefits.

What do you guys, the experts, think?

[Steve Guttag]

The first time I saw Rear Window being used was actually a Disney theme parks in their "auditorium" type attractions, like "The Hall of Presidents." It is so unobtrusive that I'd say that 99.99% of the people are completely unaware that they were there. At this point, we only have 2-3 sites with Rear Window...The Old Greenbelt theatre in Greenbelt, MD, The Patriot Theatre (just one of them) in Colonial Williamsburg, VA, and the Warner Brothers Auditorium in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

USL used to make the decoder but it was discontinued before QSC bought them. Rear Window, requires not only the LED panel but also installation/rigging beyond hanging an IR panel on most any structure, including port frames. Its legacy continues in the USL/QSC software where one can see the options for RS232 and how many lines of text (there were two different approved LED panels that would limit how much text on a line and how many lines).

Randy, as to text location and timing. For cinemas, the text for captions/subtitles should be pretty close to accurate as they time it to the frame itself AND, there is often an offset adjustment that can be applied if, for some reason, the timing doesn't line up with your equipment...just like for lip-sync. The location of the text is determined by an x/y coordinate system so, in theory, they could be located anywhere. However, if "bang, bang" were to show up near the gun...you'd turn every scene into comedy as people would giggle seeing Loony Tunes type captions showing up all over the screen. Captions are SUPPOSED to follow the location on screen to the extent of left/right or center to give some sense of directionality.

A big distinction on captions versus subtitles are the directional cues and for non-cues like "scary music playing" where a deaf person would not get audio cues a hearing person would get in say Jaws as the shark approaches. The caption person has a LOT more to process in the same amount of time. I'm amazed at how short amount of time those captions actually stay on screen (or on the captioning device). I'm sure people that depend on captions develop speed reading, of sorts because you can barely read the words before they are gone...and that is if you are staring the right spot. I've found that this is true even if there are not more captions immediately behind the current ones.

[Andrew Thomas]

People have a tendency to presume THEIR definition of what cinema should be is what everybody else thinks it should be. Or really any market, It turns out that consumer preferences are complicated and often what matters to you individually doesn't matter to others. The notion that words on screen affect suspension of disbelief in a business based around people slurping down soda and munching away at popcorn for 2 hours seems like quite the stretch. But the difference here may be that I am an exhibitor and my job is to understand the audience and their wants and desires, while yours is technical in nature.

[Harold Hallikainen]

WGBH was assigned a patent ( https://patentimages.storage.googlea.../US5570944.pdf ) in 1996 for the Rear Window system. Since patents are valid for 20 years from the date of filing, I guess the patent has expired.

WGBH required pretty high license fees on the Rear Window system. I don't see anything about them now at https://www.wgbh.org/foundation/what-we-do/ncam .

While people have complained about exit signs lighting up a screen, I have seen Rear Window displays light up a screen. They are pretty bright! Perhaps they could be made dimmer, but the reflectors need to provide adequate reflection while also transmitting the image from the cinema screen. Other technology (perhaps a large OLED video monitor) could also be used.

The USL product that drove the Rear Window display was the CCE-100. The caption board inside an IRC-28C still has an RS232 transmitter to drive a Rear Window display. We were in discussions with them years ago about their putting the board inside the Rear Window display, hence we added the driver.

Many servers can directly drive a Rear Window display. I believe the older GDC and Dolby servers could do that. They had rear panel RS232 ports. I don't know about the current products.

USL also developed a captioning system that used an LCD projector without a polarizer to project a dim green rectangle on a screen below the cinema screen. Someone wearing polarized glasses could see the captions on that screen. However, theaters did not like the green box, so it never went into production.

A few documents on closed captioning that I wrote are:

https://isdcf.com/papers/ISDCF-Doc9-...-Practices.pdf

https://isdcf.com/papers/ISDCF-Doc10...a-20160211.pdf

https://isdcf.com/papers/ISDCF-SMPTE...es20180308.pdf

http://ftp.uslinc.com/Products/IRC-2...ent_171129.pdf

https://hallikainen.org/org/DojNprm/

Harold

[Jim Cassedy]

Quoting Harold: I have seen Rear Window displays light up a screen. They are pretty bright!"

The first time I ever saw a "Rear Window"™ captioning system in use at a theater was when I went to see a movie somewhere and wound up sitting somewhere in the back 1/3rd part of the auditorium and I kept noticing some sort of undulating light bouncing off the somewhat glossy paint on the back of the seats in front of me. Then I turned around to see where the light was coming from I & saw the big LED text-panel-thingy on the back wall of the auditorium.
A co-worker who likes to wear a type of designer eye-glasses with oversized lenses & frames once told me that she couldn't wear that style in most parts of a REAR WINDOW equipped theater because she could see the caption panel partly reflected in her glasses, which was very distracting.

Somewhat related to this topic is that I was recently asked to make sure all the Closed Captioning readers & AL/DA headsets were working in all the auditoriums in one of the theaters here in SF in preparation for the upcoming release of THE ETERNALS, in which one of the main characters is hearing impaired, so the theater is anticipating a possible increased demand for the assisted listening, descriptive audio & closed captioning systems and wanted to be sure they were all in operating condition.
I don't think anybody had tested them since the theater re-opened after the extended shutdown for the Coronapacoplyse, and all were working OK except for one of the cup-holder caption readers that had batteries which wouldn't hold a charge. (& have since been replaced)

[Randy Stankey]

However, if "bang, bang" were to show up near the gun...you'd turn every scene into comedy as people would giggle seeing Loony Tunes type captions showing up all over the screen.

Yeah, I get that. I said kind of the same thing when I made reference to Pop Up Videos. They were on (IIRC) VH-1 in the middle part of the 1990s.
You're right. You don't want to litter the screen with random captions. The way I envisioned it, this would happen just a couple of times during an entire movie, only when it's hard for the viewer to match the caption at the bottom of the screen with the action in the scene.

Most of the time, when a sound effect happens, the action on the screen is easy to see. When Clint Eastwood faces off with Lee VanCleef in a gunfight, "Blondie" pulls his gun, there is a muzzle flash and smoke then "Angel Eyes" falls down. Yes, a caption at the bottom of the screen [GUNSHOT] is appropriate. Nothing else is needed.

OR... When two men sneak into Clint Eastwood's hotel room, at night, while he's asleep and try to kill him but they only find a dummy in the bed. The "Man Without a Name" steps out of the shadows and drops the both of them. In that case, something could appear on screen to indicate where in the room the shot came from. It doesn't have to be the word, "BANG!" It could be a simple asterisk, paired with the caption *GUNSHOTS*

I agree that it's bad to fill the screen with stuff that makes it look like a campy episode of Batman. OOF! POW! BLAMMO!

I just wonder whether there is a way to use existing technology to make it easier for people to connect words and actions.

[Bobby Henderson]

Our local AMC location re-opened after its water line break last weekend. Apparently AMC has decided to experiment with open captioning at the Lawton Patriot 13 location. Several shows have their early, discount matinees also set with open captioning. Nice way to penalize customers looking to save a few bucks.

But the difference here may be that I am an exhibitor and my job is to understand the audience and their wants and desires, while yours is technical in nature.

In my case I'm a paying CUSTOMER. If I want a movie-going experience similar to watching a movie on a TV set in an assisted living center I'll go watch a movie there (or just leave the CC button on my TV set to "on"). Forcing open captioning on all customers delivers just that experience. If the theater insists on applying open captioning to every show I just won't be any tickets at that theater. That is my choice.

By the way, any theater whose sound is run low enough where you can clearly hear everyone slurping on their sodas, munching popcorn, etc has a sound system that sucks ass. Pretty bad example to use to justify lowering presentation quality standards even more. Cinemas do actually need to deliver an experience that's worth enough to spend the time and extra money to drive there to witness. If the quality standard is low and getting lower what the hell point is there in paying for that shit?

[Andrew Thomas]

Our local AMC location re-opened after its water line break last weekend. Apparently AMC has decided to experiment with open captioning at the Lawton Patriot 13 location. Several shows have their early, discount matinees also set with open captioning. Nice way to penalize customers looking to save a few bucks.



In my case I'm a paying CUSTOMER. If I want a movie-going experience similar to watching a movie on a TV set in an assisted living center I'll go watch a movie there (or just leave the CC button on my TV set to "on"). Forcing open captioning on all customers delivers just that experience. If the theater insists on applying open captioning to every show I just won't be any tickets at that theater. That is my choice.

By the way, any theater whose sound is run low enough where you can clearly hear everyone slurping on their sodas, munching popcorn, etc has a sound system that sucks ass. Pretty bad example to use to justify lowering presentation quality standards even more. Cinemas do actually need to deliver an experience that's worth enough to spend the time and extra money to drive there to witness. If the quality standard is low and getting lower what the hell point is there in paying for that shit?

I understand you are an end user, and from my years of reading your comments, probably the sort that exhibitors curse under their breath when they see you walking in

Who said anything about hearing *other* people eating their concessions? I’m talking about the viewer themselves enjoying their concessions while “suspending disbelief”. Apparently words on the screen ruins this, but the greasy bag of popcorn doesn’t.