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National Theater In London Offers Glasses With Live Subtitles (nytimes.com)
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.
Being displayed on a screen separate from the performance (glasses in this case) makes it a surtitle or supertitle.
Source: I do the surtitles for local opera performances.
Seems like that would be more useful over there.
I already wear glasses
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'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.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
A simple, low tech solution that will always work because it is so simple.
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.
...when someone just walks out with them, whoops - seems like I forgot to return those. "Roots Google Glasses".
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
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.
This is simply amazing. Imagine seeing the Rolling Stones and actually understanding what they're saying for a change? I bet you can't get no sadiscfarction from dat.
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 area soon enough!
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
... subtitles.
GMO shit. No thanks and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
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.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There are no Theaters In London - only Theatres.
I'm not sure I understand why speech recognition is a major problem - if the actors have microphones on (as I thought most do to feed the hearing aid T-Loop at the very least), then providing clean speech only feeds to the subtitling system from these mics should be a piece of piss.....
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 as it is being performed, line by line, sending each line of text as it is spoken. It is no easier to automate than lights, sound, and curtain.