Rear Window Captioning System The Rear Window Captioning System is a method for presenting, through captions, a transcript of the audio portion of a film in theatres for deaf, hard-of-hearing, or hearing impaired people. The system was co-developed by WGBH and Rufus Butler Seder. On the way into the theatre, viewers pick up a reflective plastic panel mounted on a gooseneck stalk. The panel sits in a seat cupholder or on the floor adjacent to the seat. A large LED display is mounted on a rear wall that displays caption characters in mirror image. Viewers move the panels into position (usually below the movie screen) so they can read the reflected captions and watch the movie. It is sometimes necessary to sit in a certain area of the theater to obtain the best angle for reflecting the backward text emitted from the back of the theater on the panel while also being able to view the movie at the same time. Through this method, all screenings of a film can be accessible to caption viewers, who sit right alongside people not watching captions, who in turn do not see the captions. Rear Window captioning is an alternative to open captioning, in which text is permanently visible on the movie print. Open captioning has been little-used due to the fear that it was too intrusive and noticeable to hearing viewers. However, no studies have been conducted to elicit hearing people's opinions on how they will adapt to reading captions on screen. Rear Window captioning is a form of closed captioning because the viewer must choose to view the captions. Not many movie distributors or producers choose to provide Rear Window captioning. One of the reasons often stated for not providing Rear Window captioning is the cost of the hardware (as of 2004, approximately US$12,000 per screen). The cost of captioning a film is on the order of US$2,000 (about $17 per minute), which limits its use to major studio releases. For blind viewers, audio description can be and usually is transmitted along with captions. Viewers listen to the descriptions via wireless headsets. In the Rear Window system, the film print is unaffected. Captions and descriptions are distributed on a CD-ROM that may be copied onto a computer. The computer plays the caption and/or description separate files synchronously with the film. External links National Center for Accessible Media Most Popular Articles: Music    Musical Instruments    Guitar    Classical Music    History    Music Definition    Country Music    Rock Music    Pop Music    Hip Hop    Rap    DJ    Video Games    Casino Games    Poker    Blackjack    Casinos    Real Estate    Loan    Auction    eBay    Marketing    Search Engine Optimization    File Sharing    MP3    Music Industry    Kazaa    Internet    Supermodel    Fashion    Fashion Designers    Erotica    Modeling    Clothing    Boots    Shoes    Diamond Engagement Rings    Diamond    Rugs    Gospel Music    Affiliate    E-Commerce    Radio This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. You must provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html To view or edit this article at Wikipedia go to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window_Captioning_System