For the deaf and hard-of-hearing, going to the movies has been a difficult experience. Scary villains speak in creepy whispers, plot details are sometimes left to voiceovers, and animated characters are impossible to lipread, no matter how hard Pixar and DreamWorks try to make them look realistic.
But now hearing impaired moviegoers can enjoy films on the big screen the same way they do at home: with subtitles and closed captions.
Sony Entertainment Access Glasses provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard-of-hearing as well as audio descriptions for the blind and visually impaired.
Regal Cinemas’ new Sony Entertainment Access Glasses bring the rest of the story to the screen to 6,000 screens nationwide, including at three theaters in the Syracuse area. The spectacles fit like 3-D glasses, but instead project text of the actors’ dialogue and descriptions of various sounds about 10 feet in front of the user.