Earcatch offers an inclusive film experience in cinemas, offering people with a visual impairment to listen to audio description and audio subtitling on their own device. This allows them to have an autonomous outing to the cinema, not relying on the cinema’s hardware.
AUDIO DESCRIPTION
Audio description (AD) makes films accessible to people with sight loss. In between dialogues a voice describes what appears on screen. This extra explanation makes it much easier to follow the story line. For example, elements that are described are characters, facial expressions, location and developments in the plot.
AUDIO SUBTITLES
People with sight loss often have difficulty reading subtitles. For films with multilingual dialogues, audio subtitles (AST) ensure that the translation is audible in addition to the audio description.
Audio subtitles can also be used to offer dubbing translation to a foreign audience.
Through their headphones, the user hears the translation of the dialogues simultaneously with the film.
Lesley, who is blind, speaks of her experience with Earcatch in the following video:
AMPLIFIED SOUND
People with hearing loss can listen to amplified sound via Earcatch, where the dialogues are extra clearly audible.
By using headphones or a hearing aid, this special audio mix can be heard during the film and the regular sound is automatically muffled.
SIGN LANGUAGE
For a large group of deaf people, sign language is their mother tongue. Increasingly, films are translated into sign language. Via Earcatch, these can be played in the cinema.
SUBTITLES
Many film screenings do not have subtitles by default, when no translations are needed. Easy to understand for the regular audience, but if you are hard of hearing you will miss the essence of the story. In addition, important sounds, music descriptions and speaker identifications make the experience much more complete. Closed captions (CC) automatically synchronize with the dialogue via Earcatch.
Translating subtitles can also be offered via the Earcatch app, so that films can be made accessible to an even wider audience!
TRY IT
Do you wish to see for yourself how it works? Try it here!