UPDATE: FeedFliks: A New Way To Search for Netflix Instant Watch Movies with Captions

I wrote yesterday about FeedFliks, a search engine that, among other things, enables you to search for captioned InstantWatch movies on Netflix -- a great benefit for deaf Netflix users who would like to watch instantly streamed movies in captions, but have limited options for searching and viewing them. Since then, Mike Chapman, the creator and editor of the "ncmacasl" InstantWatch captioned database which I also cited yesterday, sent a tweet in response, saying that FeedFliks is not the only automated search engine with the capability of searching for captioned InstantWatch movies. He pointed me to InstantWatcher.com, which apparently does the same job as FeedFliks in searching for captioned instant-streaming movies.  Chapman further said that his own website, at 580+ movies and counting, is still the largest database of captioned InstantWatch movies. An admirable feat, when you consider that he has to manually search for these movies himself (now with some help from the web community).Thanks, Mike Chapman, for sharing.

Googling "Gone with the Wind"

The New York Times reported yesterday that YouTube, a Google subsidiary, is in negotiations to purchase Next New Networks, the leading provider of original video programming for the Internet. While it is too early to comment because it is not a done deal, this has some interesting implications for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Even if this deal falls through, it would not be surprising if there are future efforts to acquire companies that independently produce original video content for the Web.As a video site best known for hosting mom-and-pop video content, YouTube's possible acquisition of Next New Networks would effectively bring YouTube into more direct competition with commercial video content distributors like Hulu and Netflix. In the accessibility space, what separates YouTube from Netflix is its pioneering automatic transcription technology, which automatically captions any spoken dialogue on its videos without any human intervention. Does it mean that automatic transcription will extend to content that is typically the domain of Hulu and Blip.tv? As it stands today, independent web providers have not responded well to requests to caption their content.While automatic transcription is not a sure thing today -- its accuracy is far below acceptable access standards for closed-captioning, and it may take years for the accuracy to approach that of an average-quality human captioner -- there is the possibility that deaf and hard-of-hearing people could start to enjoy so-called Webisodes on a par with their hearing peers, with little or no cost to the Webisode providers.In the last ten years, the deaf and hard-of-hearing community has found itself increasingly shut out of most video content on the Internet. Prior to the advent of the Internet as a mass medium in the mid-1990's, all commercial video content not shown at movie theaters was shown on only one other medium -- the television set. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990, and a comprehensive closed captioning infrastructure made it possible for the deaf and hard-of-hearing to enjoy closed captioned video content on almost the same terms as their hearing peers. There was no other major video distribution medium besides the television and the silver screen, so the existing captioning infrastructure was adequate to address all available video content then as required by law.While the pre-broadband Internet had some negative impact on video accessibility for the deaf, the arrival of YouTube and the wide adoption of broadband Internet resulted in an explosion of video content which is not closed captioned, and far outnumbers traditional TV and movie content. While most online video content is non-commercial (i.e., uploaded by individuals like you and me) and thus out of the realm of commercial captioning agencies, there are hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of hours of commercially produced online video content that is not required to be captioned under existing pre-2010 laws. The recently signed Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, the first major law ever to mandate captioning for Internet-broadcast videos, only covers online content originally broadcast on television. However, even if all online video content is required to be captioned, the current infrastructure cannot support captioning of all video content. The lack of a digital/online video broadcasting format standard and the sheer amount of online commercial video content are major roadblocks.From a business standpoint, it makes practical sense that YouTube would consider this acquisition. It is the Wild West in the online video programming arena -- network-supported Web channels are battling with scores of independent web networks that have sprung up in the past several years. Yet, in any industry that sees too many companies pursuing the same set of consumers, it is inevitable that at some point there will be fewer existing web networks, as many of them will either die out, or be acquired by larger companies including traditional cable and broadcast networks, and major video content distributors such as Google.The coming industry consolidation may make it easier for the remaining companies to support captioning standards for their video content. Whether it is automatic transcription, or other pieces of technology that can address the issue of captioning millions of hours of online video content, it is highly likely that something will be done to effectively address online video accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. There is a strong business case for this: transcribing all video content will make the video content searchable. As the world's leading search engine, Google -- the parent of YouTube -- already recognizes the value of entering the video programming arena.

UPDATE: To Caption Or Not To Caption A Movie About Autism?

An update to this article I wrote yesterday: Gerardine Wurzburg, the director of "Wretches & Jabberers," a film about two autistic men traveling to three foreign countries, announced that its premiere at the Vermont International Film Festival on October 22nd "will be open captioned to insure full access to the film."  The two other showings of the movie at the film festival will continue to be open captioned as previously scheduled.

To Caption Or Not To Caption A Movie About Autism?

  Historically, people with autism were usually excluded from society, and even today this is an unfortunate fact of life in different cultures around the world. "Wretches & Jabberers," a film by Gerardine Wurzburg about two autistic men traveling to different countries, challenges long-standing assumptions people harbor about autistic people in general. In this film, Larry Bissonnette and Tracy Thresher, who are autistic, visit three countries with vastly different cultures -- Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland -- and fight prevailing attitudes in these countries about their own disability.Sounds like a fantastic movie and I plan to see it soon. Which is why the decision not to caption the movie's premiere at the Vermont International Film Festival in late October is very puzzling. I first heard about this movie from a deaf friend in Vermont who was excited to attend the premiere. However, when she inquired about captioning for this film, the associate producer of "Wretches and Jabberers," Dan Curl, replied to her:

"I apologize but the festival organizers would like the film to premiere in its original format as envisioned by the director. I have requested that the two additional screenings in the festival be open captioned: Oct. 24th at 1:15pm & Oct. 26th at 3:30pm . They are happy to oblige. I hope you can make it to one of these showings and enjoy the film. Thank you for your support!"

I previewed the "Wretches & Jabberers" trailer -- which is captioned -- and it is not clear why the festival organizers would like the film to go without captions at its premiere. What is meant by "original format as envisioned by the director?" Do they not want deaf and hard-of-hearing people to attend the festival premiere of the movie? So much for the inclusion which the two autistic men in the film are fighting for.International film festivals, such as the one in Vermont, usually have foreign films in their native languages that come with English subtitles, so there should be no arbitrary decision on what specific screening times a film should be captioned. The premiere will be shown at 6:30 on a Friday evening, which is usually a social evening and the most convenient time to see a movie. The captioned versions will be shown during the day on Sunday and Tuesday, when some people have day jobs and other commitments.But even then, that is not the point. Elaine Morse, a deaf Vermont resident, said, "The organizers are essentially saying, yes, we will allow you to see the film with captions, but you have to go at another time. We don't want the captions during the premiere. In other words, we don't want people with disabilities attending our premiere."If the associate producer of a movie -- the same movie which challenges cultural beliefs that exclude a whole disability group -- listens to the wishes of organizers of a local festival and removes captions for its premiere, this defeats the purpose of the movie which is to educate the general public about the experiences of two men with a disability who were excluded from society for much of their early lives.After all, on the aforementioned trailer, there are open captions which are part of the film. On some scenes, the men use a communication device -- which spells words out on a screen -- to communicate. One of the men says, "People all want communication."People all want communication. The festival organizers want the film to premiere without captions. How is it considered "communication?"

Abledbody.com: iPhone Movie Captioning App To Be Shelved?

Last month, I wrote here on abledbody.com about a new captioning application for the iPhone, called Subtitles, that lets deaf and hard-of-hearing moviegoers follow the dialogue of almost any movie in any movie theater in the nation.  Earlier this week, Dan Walker was notified by Apple that his app violated movie studio copyrights relating to transcripts, and rejected his latest update.  While an earlier update is working, there is a possibility his app may be rejected outright.To read my article on the Subtitles for iPhone app, click here.