Should movies be closed-captioned?

Few things are more annoying than the way sound is treated in the mass media. I can hardly stand to listen to our Sirius/XM radios any more because the in-between-songs blurbs and jabbering are about 20 dB louder than the songs.

"Stop yelling at me!!"

Neither J nor I can understand Jonny Lee Miller (Sherlock) on Elementary very well unless we turn the sound up...

Also, we're at the mercy of the way our brains interpret sounds. E.g.:

J Acoust Soc Am. 2007 Oct;122(4):2365-75.

Contribution of consonant versus vowel information to sentence intelligibility for young normal-hearing and elderly hearing-impaired listeners.

Kewley-Port D1, Burkle TZ, Lee JH.

Author information

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of information provided by vowels versus consonants to sentence intelligibility in young normal-hearing (YNH) and typical elderly hearing-impaired (EHI) listeners. Sentences were presented in three conditions, unaltered or with either the vowels or the consonants replaced with speech shaped noise. Sentences from male and female talkers in the TIMIT database were selected. Baseline performance was established at a 70 dB SPL level using YNH listeners. Subsequently EHI and YNH participants listened at 95 dB SPL. Participants listened to each sentence twice and were asked to repeat the entire sentence after each presentation. Words were scored correct if identified exactly. Average performance for unaltered sentences was greater than 94%. Overall, EHI listeners performed more poorly than YNH listeners. However, vowel-only sentences were always significantly more intelligible than consonant-only sentences, usually by a ratio of 2:1 across groups. In contrast to written English or words spoken in isolation, these results demonstrated that for spoken sentences, vowels carry more information about sentence intelligibility than consonants for both young normal-hearing and elderly hearing-impaired listeners.

Emphasis added.

(sigh)

Cheers,
Scott.
("Quit mumbling!!")

Post #416,181 by dmcarls 12/21/16 2:53:48 PM 12/21/16 2:53:48 PM Reply	Should movies be closed-captioned? [...] "This rule is effective January 17, 2017. Public accommodations with movie theater auditoriums showing digital movies on December 2, 2016 must comply with the rule's requirement to provide closed movie captioning and audio description in such auditoriums by June 2, 2018. " [...] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/12/02/2016-28644/nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-disability-by-public-accommodations-movie-theaters-movie
Post #416,183 by altmann 12/21/16 3:13:25 PM 12/21/16 3:13:25 PM Reply	Re: Should movies be closed-captioned? They aren't requiring open captioning (aka: putting the caption up on the big screen), although it looks like that is an option for compliance. They're talking about requiring devices like these be available: https://www.amctheatres.com/assistive-moviegoing
Post #416,185 by a6l6e6x 12/21/16 3:49:00 PM 12/21/16 3:49:00 PM Reply	There are times it would help me. I'm guessing I'm having high frequency loss and sometimes the deep base surround sound washes out dialogue. Signal to noise and all that. :) Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #416,190 by Another Scott 12/21/16 4:25:24 PM 12/21/16 4:25:24 PM Reply	The things we get to look forward to, if we're lucky! Few things are more annoying than the way sound is treated in the mass media. I can hardly stand to listen to our Sirius/XM radios any more because the in-between-songs blurbs and jabbering are about 20 dB louder than the songs. "Stop yelling at me!!" Neither J nor I can understand Jonny Lee Miller (Sherlock) on Elementary very well unless we turn the sound up... Also, we're at the mercy of the way our brains interpret sounds. E.g.: J Acoust Soc Am. 2007 Oct;122(4):2365-75. Contribution of consonant versus vowel information to sentence intelligibility for young normal-hearing and elderly hearing-impaired listeners. Kewley-Port D1, Burkle TZ, Lee JH. Author information Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of information provided by vowels versus consonants to sentence intelligibility in young normal-hearing (YNH) and typical elderly hearing-impaired (EHI) listeners. Sentences were presented in three conditions, unaltered or with either the vowels or the consonants replaced with speech shaped noise. Sentences from male and female talkers in the TIMIT database were selected. Baseline performance was established at a 70 dB SPL level using YNH listeners. Subsequently EHI and YNH participants listened at 95 dB SPL. Participants listened to each sentence twice and were asked to repeat the entire sentence after each presentation. Words were scored correct if identified exactly. Average performance for unaltered sentences was greater than 94%. Overall, EHI listeners performed more poorly than YNH listeners. However, vowel-only sentences were always significantly more intelligible than consonant-only sentences, usually by a ratio of 2:1 across groups. In contrast to written English or words spoken in isolation, these results demonstrated that for spoken sentences, vowels carry more information about sentence intelligibility than consonants for both young normal-hearing and elderly hearing-impaired listeners. Emphasis added. (sigh) Cheers, Scott. ("Quit mumbling!!")
Post #416,197 by mmoffitt 12/21/16 5:02:50 PM 12/21/16 5:02:50 PM Reply	Headsets are grand. I love the port on my Roku controllers. bcnu, Mikem Social Media is for Sociopaths.
Post #416,201 by drook 12/21/16 5:23:48 PM 12/21/16 5:23:48 PM Reply	Mumbler! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKFGREngKC0 -- Drew
Post #416,217 by Another Scott 12/21/16 8:24:18 PM 12/21/16 8:24:18 PM Reply	:-D
Post #418,394 by CRConrad 6/1/17 9:16:31 AM 6/1/17 9:16:31 AM Reply	No, they should be open-captioned. HTH!

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