Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Nov 1, 2007 19:13:23 GMT -6
Only Planetarium in the World with Closed Captioning
The Adler Planetarium recently installed closed captioning in their theaters. It is the first and only planetarium in the world that had adapted their shows for deaf and hard of hearing patrons.
Shows at the planetarium are viewed on domed ceilings. Using a hand-held captioning device, deaf and hard of hearing people can experience the wonders of the universe.
Inside the Starrider Theater 'Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity" is playing. Deaf and hard of hearing patrons can benefit from the information using I-Caption.
Mark Webb is the manager of Adler Planetarium theaters explains how it works.
"It uses a personal digital assistant just like you would keep your calendar and your address book on but instead do doing that we use it to show captions so the captions are stored on the device itself which is then mounted at the theater seat. A computer in the back room keeps track of where the program is and tells the device to switch to the next caption so it send out a little signal and the device does to the next caption so that it stay in sync with the soundtrack," said Webb.
Creating captions is easy.
"We take a copy of the scripts from the program and we cut and paste it into individual captions and store those pictures on the PDA<" said Webb.
Captioning is something the planetarium has always wanted to provide.
"When we built this theater the star rider in 1999, we wanted to include something like t his but the technology was not really ready at that point. We investigated a system that was going to cost $10,000, per chair to install and ti was just impossible for us to do it," said Webb.
The I-Caption is always available.
"If somebody would like to use the captioning devices when they visit the adler they just ask at the box office and they receive a special ticket along with their show ticket which then they give to person at the door of the theater and we get a unit out the back room and set it up for them the whole process takes just a couple of minutes," Webb said.
"We do change our shows we have at least one new show in our theater a year," said Webb.
Tickets for shows are $7. There's no extra charge for the I-Caption
Source: abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=community&id=5737472