Audiofuzzy

... after reading all those threads about CC and HDTV, plasma TV and whatnot and DVDs.
I was just getting happy that by NOW almost every channel has CC and almost every DVD, too.

And now that my TV broke and I have to get another one, I was thinking about some new technology.
For what? to NOT to be able to have simple, easily readable CC anymore only irritation and feeling of helplessnes.
I would have to fell on my head to personally pay for this modern technological wonderful c*ap so much money, at that.

They can stick their "superior quality" HDTVs and all up their a**es if nobody thought of CC for us.

What worse looks like even if I stick with analog TV to have CC, eventually the old captioning will disappear anyway in lieu of SDH or such - which is not as good.

I feel you Deaf Culture community should demind that the government should create an official law that says not matter what media new invention or further development NO TV or DVD or anything that the deaf would need CC for SHOULD BE SOLD WITHOUT HAVING CC FOR THE DEAF included, period.

Fuzzy

Deafness

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Banjo

You should be able to get CC from DVD as long it's in 480 interlaced. If you enabled the DVD player in progressive mode, turn it back to interlaced/standard and you will get CC. Don't hook the DVD player to a HDMI input, hook it up via RCA, S-Video or component cables and use 480i. The standard resolution on a standard DVD is 720×480 NTSC, so if you are using a standard DVD player (not an upconverting player), it won't look any better in 720p or above. In fact, it may look worse if it's not upconverted. So the best solution is to stick to 480i for DVD players.

The uses of SDH is really intended for high-def video disc formats, not TV. They are using digital CC on HD channels. Your digital cable/sat receiver need to be able to turn on the CC from the box, not the TV.

Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD use SDH, so I'm happy with that. I don't think you are fully aware of what SDH is. The amount of information is the same as you would find in the standard CC. It's not the same as English subtitles. There is a difference.

webexplorer

I heard that new flat monitors are required to install a cable fee monthly plastic card for each monitor. I mean each T.V. What a greedy company that invented the idea.

peternagy

Are you referring to CableCard?

peternagy

I am waiting for the format war to be over before buying either Blu-ray or HD-DVD player. Until then, I am sticking with sub-titles from DVD movies.

webexplorer

Yes, I think that what it called.

Banjo

It's likely to be over by the end of this year. Right now, Blu-ray Disc software sales are about go into their 8th month of beating the HD DVD format and the gap is widening. Somewhere from 2 to 1, but it should be 3 to 1 anytime soon if the trend continues. The high-definition (both Blu-ray and HD DVD) players are also dropping in prices quite fast too. So you can expect lower prices by Christmas.

The important thing is that we are given choices. That's why I picked Blu-ray Disc over HD DVD... because I get to pick.

For the Blu-ray Disc standalone players, you can pick from Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Sharp, Lite-On, Mitsubishi and more. Right now, there is still only one major manufactorer of HD DVD standalone players and that is Toshiba.

The LG combo player isn't counted since it's lacking the HD DVD logo. They weren't allowed to use the HD DVD logo because it lacked the second hardware which is required to take advantage of the HDi feature. So the experience of playing HD DVD movies on the LG player will be hindered because of the lack of specs needed to meet the standards. It's grossly overpriced too as well especially when you can't take the full advantage of playing HD DVD.

I don't blame you for wanting to wait though. Consumers are still confused and many, many people still don't understand what a HDTV is capable of these days even though they came out in the late 90s.

I will continue to put my full confidence in the Blu-ray Disc format being the better choice. I was an early adopter of the DVD format. A lot of people were quite wary of the DVD format when it first came out. It's the same case here now, only with two formats at once. I wish this wasn't the case but it is. :-/

Audiofuzzy

I think I understand from your blog. The problem I have with it is that with light bright background I can't see the print at all.
Call me old fashioned but I need black board with white print.

I aprecciate Banjo your trying to enlighten me but I am a simpleton and I want to plug in TV, plug in DVD, and have CC, that's all.

Fuzzy

Banjo

The problem is that the CC technology isn't as user-friendly as people would like to think. Subtitles are much more user-friendly since it's always there for you to gain access to.

Most subtitles are perfectly readable these days. When the DVD format first came out onto the market, there were a lot of badly subtitled movies where you could almost not read it.

There's no excuse for the deaf consumers to lack knowledge in these areas today. They should be doing more research and looking it up on the internet before complaining about it.

Simpletion or not, you should start doing research and expand your knowledge in these areas because you'll be happy if you do.

peternagy

I am hoping Blu-Ray will win mainly because of larger disc capacity than HD-DVD. I am patient and I can wait. I don't buy movies. I always rent movies from local video store and they don't yet carry High Definition movies probably because it's not cost effective to sell/rent both formats.

Peter

Banjo

Not just that, Blu-ray discs are hardcoated. HD DVDs aren't. It's incredibly important that high-density optical discs become better-protected these days. You can still scratch a Blu-ray disc but people dont intentionally damage discs so you should be safe. With a CD/DVD/HD DVD, all you have to do is accidentally drop it onto the floor or something and it can get scratched just like that. Of course, I handle all of my DVDs with great caution. Unlikely the average consumer.

I don't often rent DVDs from video stores because people are so careless with the DVDs these days. Sometimes, it's hard to believe how much damages they do to a DVD. I've wondered about what they could had done to it to cause such a great deal of damage to them. All you have to do is slip it into the DVD player and then put it back into the DVD case. But somehow, they manage to put 500 scratches onto it between the process.

By the way, Blockbuster announced that they are going to rent only Blu-ray Disc in all of their stores. They dumped HD DVD as they said they weren't renting enough. Around 70 to 75% of the consumers were renting Blu-ray over HD DVD.

peternagy

That's great news. I always rent movies from Blockbuster. I have to check it out.

Peter

Foxrac

It will take some time to spread at Blockbuster in your area.

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peternagy

Yeah, I was afraid of that. Oh well, like I said I can wait and the price of Blu-Ray players will drop even further down.

Peter

Audiofuzzy

I really don't care if CC technology is user friendly or not. So far, for years I, the deaf consumer, was perfectly happy with it.

I am not satisfied with "most subtitles are readable nowadays".
Most? MOST?
'scuse me , CC were ALL readable, thank you.


If they can put a man on the Moon, they can make decent CC for us as well.
I don't care how.

As for me getting educated about newest technology - you are probably right but this stuff bores me, I am sorry to say. My mind starts wandering off just after two lines of reading technical text.... sigh.

As a consumer I pay a lot of money. If I pay money I want results, not to need to educate and do research by myself, that's all.

Thank you Banjo and everyone for you input.

Fuzzy

Banjo

It's amazing how people don't want to become better-educated on these matters especially if they have to complain about it.

Talk about bad logic!

sequoias

Those animals sure are lucky. They don't need to learn about technology stuff. The only bad thing is that animals will kill the babies if they are not "right' for survival.

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peternagy

Personally, I like today's technology CC. I like being able to change font styles and sizes of digital CC of my TV.

I do not use CC for DVD movies because I prefer progressive scan (480p) than interlaced (480i) and CC cannot be viewed using progressive scan. I am picky and I do notice picture quality differences between interlaced and progressive images. So I use sub-titles for DVD movies and I think they are clear and readable. I don't mind if the wording is not exactly the same as what the actors say as long as they are understandable. I prefer transparent background over black background. That's just me.

On a unrelated subject, I went to Blockbuster today and I found a whole rack of Blu-Ray movies! But they are older movies and I have seen most of them. I am more interested in new releases but this is good progress especially in a small city where I live.

Peter

Banjo

You can look at the titles they have to offer so far. They are announcing more and more Blu-ray releases on a near-daily basis. There's even a report saying that Fox is going to release around 50 titles in the fourth quarter alone (Sept-Dec).

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/

Audiofuzzy

No, it's not that. I am all for education, but I have limits too.
I have plenty of other instances where I have to get educated on, and sometimes extensively.


But why would I have to first educate myself in order to have something that should be simply available without additional education.
Hearing people doesn't have to educate themselves in order to enjoy wonders of new technology.
They just get the TV, DVD, the remote manual and that's it.
Why should I?

The ALWAYS readable CC should be there anyhere, anytime, period.
No trying connect this or that, this system or that, or MOSTLY readable SDH.

Just to be clear - my irritation wasn't directed at you, Banjo but at people who messed up so far perfectly good black and white CC.

What the heck is this crap - I have three years old TV, and nobody want to fix CC - "too complicated", "they don't have parts", "they don't deal with it" "newer TVs are like that" etc.
Newer TVs are like that ??? F... . .

I am beginning to think the CC box was best option, so far.
If it broke, you could have it fixed, at least. And you could plug it up with almost anything.
As long as the TV station transmitted CC it was there. Simple.

Besides, I just GOT educated- I read your blog, didn't I

Fuzzy

Banjo

I think the best option is to invest in a STB (Set-Top Box) that you can put next to your television. We used to have these in the 80s before they started installing them into our television sets as required by the law.

It's incredibly difficult to find one that is designed for the HDTV displays here in North America while it's easily available in Australia. They do have CC decoders in other countries because they don't install them in the television sets since it's not required by law. You can buy it with a CC decoder built in but it'll cost you more.

Nobody said life was fair.

peternagy

Thanks for the info. Remember, I don't buy movies, just rent them. I don't have the need to collect movies. Yeah, I know about renting from Netflix but I am not interested. I believe they charge monthly for unlimited movies but I don't watch enough movies each month.

Peter

restless_heart

I still have one, rarely used. I kept it for no reason...since I had four TV with CC in it but I still kept the CC box.

Audiofuzzy

hold on it.
someday it will be valuable antique. you may not benefit from it simply getting older - but maybe your great-great-great somebody will

I gave mine away when they started making TV with CC because I lost it's remote control.
someone didn't mind plugging it via video recorder and then use video remote control to change channels.
you had to turn on the TV, the CC, the video - all at once, lol.

Thanks again Banjo. No, life is not fair

Fuzzy

Silentwolfdog

Man! I thought I was only one that think the same way you did. More I tried to research this more headaches I got. I just hate the idea that for each movie I got to turn SDH on and I did not like the design of SDH at all. But seem like we are out of luck though.

I agree with you, I don't understand why we have to go through more complex process just to watch tv with captioning of some kind. It should be like volume for hearing folks, simple and ready for them to use. We got to buy stuff or change stuff to make sure we can watch it with quality we want.

I am not looking forward for the day I have to buy HDTV and blu-ray DVD and stuff that you need for subtitles/captioning. Ughh...More I see issues that arise with CC more I am glad for older tv even if picture is not pretty. I used to be picky over this but not anymore. I guess I've just learned to settle for less.

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Audiofuzzy

You got it! You said it so much better than me.

My point exactly... and for lesser captions, at that.
I agree wholeheartedly - this is too much hassle and CC quality seem to be worse.
I just want to buy TV, turn it on, and enjoy my good CC. Same with DVD.

And I don't want MOSTLY readable captions - I want ALWAYS and WELL readable captions. Who are those dummies who come up with new CC ideas? I doubt they are deaf.


I am suprised nobody seem to be protesting as much as I am.

Fuzzy

sequoias