National Theater In London Offers Glasses With Live Subtitles (nytimes.com) 46
The National Theater in London has introduced "smart caption glasses" that display dialogue on the lenses as actors speak (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). The glasses should drastically improve the experience for audience members who have hearing difficulties. According to The New York Times, "The glasses can be used without charge for the play 'War Horse' and for the musical 'Hadestown,' and they will be available for all of the theater's 2019 season." From the report: Jonathan Suffolk, the theater's technical director, said that the glasses had taken two years to develop. "We could have offered the scripts on a phone, but we wanted a technology that was much more discreet and immersive and wouldn't disturb anyone," he said. The biggest challenge was creating software that allowed the words to be displayed in real time so that people wearing the glasses reached important moments -- such as jokes -- along with everyone else, Mr. Suffolk added. It is easy to load a script into a subtitling system and hit "ego" at the start of the play, he said, but problems would then arise if actors spoke quicker or slower than expected.
The software used by the theater follows live speech and recognizes certain stage directions, like lighting changes, to ensure the subtitles appear in the right place. The words are then transmitted to the glasses over Wi-Fi. According to Andrew Lambourne, a professor at Leeds Beckett University who worked on the project, a major obstacle that the software had to overcome was recognizing speech even when actors were talking over each other or being bombarded by sound effects. Mr. Suffolk said it was difficult to know how many people would use the equipment. The theater has bought 50 pairs, at a cost of around $1,050 per pair. The National Theater will make the glasses available to some other British venues next year, including during a touring production of "Macbeth." The Barbican Theater in London said in a statement that it was in talks about using them.
The software used by the theater follows live speech and recognizes certain stage directions, like lighting changes, to ensure the subtitles appear in the right place. The words are then transmitted to the glasses over Wi-Fi. According to Andrew Lambourne, a professor at Leeds Beckett University who worked on the project, a major obstacle that the software had to overcome was recognizing speech even when actors were talking over each other or being bombarded by sound effects. Mr. Suffolk said it was difficult to know how many people would use the equipment. The theater has bought 50 pairs, at a cost of around $1,050 per pair. The National Theater will make the glasses available to some other British venues next year, including during a touring production of "Macbeth." The Barbican Theater in London said in a statement that it was in talks about using them.
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Unless you go to the Disney Live performances here in Japan where they rent out these same glasses to foreigners so they can see subtitles in their language. All the performances here are Japanese as you would expect, so if you want to read along in english you can.
Duh (Score:2)
It is easy to load a script into a subtitling system and hit "ego" at the start of the play, he said, but problems would then arise if actors spoke quicker or slower than expected.
The software used by the theater follows live speech and recognizes certain stage directions, like lighting changes
Meanwhile, the software used by /. follows text on a webpage, translating "go" into "ego".
Seriously, though, it shouldn't be news to anyone that live theatre doesn't work like a pre-recorded movie. Theatre techs need to follow cues on the stage for controlling light and sound, and this involves timing at fractions of a second. I wonder if their speech recognition system could be used to automate those too; I guess it's not perfect if they need the lighting cues as well.
Also, subtitles in theatres aren'
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Also, subtitles in theatres aren't exactly a new thing, though I mostly recall seeing them in operas. There it makes more sense, given they are less commonly translated into local languages, and timing precision is less important.
Is Fat Lady singing? [Yes / No]
[No] There's more coming.
[Yes] Opera is almost over.
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That's not politically correct. The correct term is "weight-challenged"*.
* I actually wrote that as a joke, but searching for "weight-challenged" I see it's actually a thing now.
This is silly. (Score:3, Interesting)
A simple, low tech solution that will always work because it is so simple.
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But how is your solution going to provide us with huge profits ?
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Instead of a third party developing these and selling them to individuals, the National Theatre apparently ate the cost of development. And is not charging a fee for them.
Profit was not the motive. Improvement was. They can patent the idea and/or sell the system to other theatres if it catches on but that doesn't seem to be the goal.
Theatre is not known as being a hot spot for tech entrepreneurs, nor profit generation.
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Theatre is not known as being a hot spot for tech entrepreneurs, nor profit generation.
Obviously not, but I wasn't talking about the theater, but about company providing the solution. For them, a complicated system with electronic glasses is much better than simple mirrors.
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You're insisting that the theatre went with this design after taking a look at only this option? Or that there were better options and it chose the expensive one, when it has to eat the costs?
You're cynical, but not smart enough to use it properly. This is nonsense.
Simple mirrors are the same problem as projecting text above the screen, except you have breakable objects st every seat. Finger smudges that have to be cleaned after every performance. This solution allows the viewer to look directly at any part
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Come on... Just a tad bit jaded, right?
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A simple, low tech solution that will always work because it is so simple.
Except when it doesn't. How do you know that the back wall is suitable for projection? How do you know these mirrors don't obscure the view of the people arround it? Doesn't this have the same problem as the smartphone app solution that was rejected?
Re:This is silly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your solution is quickly made far more difficult by different focal points and angles throughout the theater. Also obstruction by the guy behind you stretching his arms because he's been sitting still for too long.
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They already have these. I believe the IMAX in Los Angeles had them some years back, they use a glass pane. It was the worst system I've used. The problem is the angle has to be just perfect to see the text, and any slight movement of your head makes you lose it. It really made my neck sore trying to keep my head in the same spot. That's a lot easier than trying to reposition it during the movie.
Other more common systems are a cup holder mount with a long bendable neck that holds a 3 or 4 line old school LC
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Anyone with the smallest amount of geometric intuition can see that's utter rubbish.
If the seats are raked steeply enough that row N can see the stage over row N-1's heads (which is usually the case, because architects aren't utter idiots) then it stands to reason that the view the opposite way must be blocked.
Yeah, you could mount the mirrors on tall stalks or something like on a mod's scooter. Can't see any problems with that. Can't see the stage either.
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You may think you're joking, but actually, that's the system used by movie theatres to offer captioning for the hard of hearing - the back wall of a theatre is basically a large scrolling LED display with the captions
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It would be a lot simpler to install a prompting screen at the back of the hall
As the article said, the hardware was the simple part. I however do not welcome your neck straining option.
I appreciate the idea but ... (Score:2)
Down this track there will come some point where you just might as well issued everyone a VR helmet to correct or improve everything about a live performance.
Then they don't even need to show up at the theater.
That's progress I guess.
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And if you're going to use VR anyway, you might as well drop the actors and just use 3D models instead.
The National Theater presents: Hatsune Miku.
Such a bummer... (Score:2)
...when someone just walks out with them, whoops - seems like I forgot to return those. "Roots Google Glasses".
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RFID tag and scanner at the door similar to the anti-theft scanners at the supermarket and clothes stores.
Great for opera (Score:2)
Especialy in international teaters.
In Vienna, they have a small screen on the back of each seat, and you chose the language of the subtitles (spanish in my case).
But reading the subtitles in the back in the seat in front of you means less time looking at the stage.
In other places, if they have just one set of subtitles, is in a screen at the very top of the stage, again, reading subtitless, less time looking at the actros and decors.
With this, one can have the cake and eat it too...
Great. Hope it gets to my
Carbon-based ... (Score:2)
... subtitles.
GMO shit. No thanks and stuff.
Leeds Beckett (pronounced bouquet) University (Score:2)
For the benefit of our colonial readers: with a few exceptions, any UK university named city + ( famous person, region, or geographical feature) University is a second-rate former poly. A community college, more or less.
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And yet they delivered. So sod off with your snobism.
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Snobbism. The second b is necessary to preserve the short o sound.
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Oooh, the typo police is in.
Since that is apparently the whole of your counterargument, thank you for conceding the point.
Need this with instant translation (Score:2)
I want to hear what people are saying and how they are saying it, but I want translated subtitles for what they're saying. At minimum it should be hilarious.
Where is this? (Score:1)
tracking live theatre is complex (Score:2)
I do sound effects and sound reinforcement for local community theatre groups. Tracking the performance so I can make noises at the appropriate times isn't just a matter of dealing with speaking tempo. There is also the possiblity that the actors will get confused, and skip a page or two of dialogue. That is when the crew intercom becomes very helpful: "they are on page 52" gets the lighting guys back on track.
I think operating this subtitler will require a dedicated operator who will follow the script a