Patent AU-2011100285-A4 (AU)
Title: Theatre captioning/ subtitling system
Inventor: ALEX FRENCH
IPC: H04N5/278
Filed: 2011-03-15
Granted: 2011-06-30
Abstract: TH EATRE CAPTI ONI NG/ SUBTI TLI NG SYSTEM This invention relates to improvements in systems for captioning and subtitling of live theatre performances. For many people with a hearing impairment, the live theatre experience can be challenging and not as enjoyable as it could be because they may not be able to hear all of the dialogue, music and sound effects throughout performances. One way to improve their theatre experience is to provide "live captioning" of 10 performances. Live captioning is the realtime text display of the actors' dialogue, together with a description of any sound effects and music. "Subtitling" is the provision of a display of text in one or more foreign languages and is used to translate the spoken word or musical lyrics in a performance for 15 the benefit of people who cannot understand all or any of the language used by the actors. Live captioning is widely used in theatres throughout Australia, the USA, Canada and the UK, and provides both access and enjoyment for Deaf and hearing 20 impaired people in those countries. In presently available theatre captioning/subtitling systems, the text is displayed on one or more large devices normally located on or near to the stage. Existing systems use LED (Light Emitting Diode) matrix type displays or Plasma/LCD 25 screens to display the text to the audience. The large LED-type displays place several limitations on both the operators and the audience as these existing systems display a maximum of only three or four rows of text. This small number of rows means that only a small number of 30 words can be placed on the display device at any time and that the caption text often can stay on the display device for only a short time period as the next caption text must be displayed in time with the speech or sound effect. The result of this is that the captions must be read quickly. 35 LED theatre captioning/subtitling systems are designed and manufactured such that they are similar to the American standards for live television closed captioning, which "smooth scrolls" each line of text up and then off the top of the display device as additional words are added to the caption. This constant scrolling of the text makes it difficult and tiring for the audience to read the 40 captions. For example, in a theatre production with fast dialogue, the captions scroll off the screen very quickly and, in so doing, require the audience to look away from the on-stage action if they wish to read all of the captions. LED captioning systems do not allow the captioner to individually control the 45 horizontal or vertical placement of the captions on the display. Although recent developments in this existing display technology for theatre captioning, based on LED matrix display types, may offer a fixed choice of three colours according to the capability of the LED components (generally being red, 50 yellow and orange), at present the existing theatre captioning systems display the text in a single colour only. Without the ability to use different colours to indicate when different actors are speaking, the LED display requires that each actor's lines be individually prefaced with his or her character name appearing in text on the display device. So every time an actor speaks, his/her character 55 name appears in text before the dialogue is displayed. This means that there is more text on the display device, which is more tiring for the audience to read and leaves less time to enjoy the onstage action. There are a limited number of suppliers worldwide who can supply captioning 5 capable LED matrix display systems, so theatres find it expensive to source the displays. A recent system patented and developed by the author, which is based on flat panel displays, allows many lines of text to be displayed in a wide range of fonts, 10 character sizes, colours and positions. However, this system also places a number of restrictions on the audience and venue. Whilst the cost of large flat panel displays is decreasing year on year, theatres must still invest in both the purchase and installation of the screens and related computer equipment. For some venues and theatre productions, the cost of purchasing, installing and 15 maintaining the screens is prohibitive. For some venues it is impossible to find a suitable location to wall-mount captioning displays due to the layout or size of the venue or due to restrictions of sightlines or architectural features. Also, the audience at theatre performances 20 which are captioned using large flat-panel displays must typically sit in designated seats as the screens are not readable or visible from all seats in the venue. Large screen displays do not allow for the presentation of foreign language subtitles to individual members of the audience. The author successfully patented in Australia and presently operates a personal captioning system which uses "PDA" devices to display captioning to individual captioning users. This system requires the installation of a WIFI network in the theatre venue so that it can deliver captions to the PDAs from a locally installed 30 server. This system requires a considerable investment by the theatre venue. Recently, a small number of specially designed and manufactured personal captioning/subtitling display devices have come onto the market. These devices may be mounted on a specially designed arm which is temporarily fitted to the 35 patron's seat. However, such a system requires major investment by the theatre venue, particularly if it is required to be available to every patron in every seat. These problems are overcome by the present invention which uses the patron's own Smart Phone or Tablet PC to discreetly display their choice of captions or 40 subtitles. The present invention comprises four elements: one or more Smart Phones or Tablet PCs, each of which is used to display the caption text to the theatre patron; caption editing software, used by the captioner to edit the caption text 45 and/or cue it live as the actors speak their lines, as music is played or as sound effects occur; an internet server-based software application which acts as a distribution channel for the captioning, sending it to each of the Smart Phones and Tablet PCs, and/or as an automation system, cueing captions and subtitles according to predefined events in the performance; and display software, which 50 connects to the server, and renders (draws) the caption text for display on the Smart Phone or Tablet PC in the chosen font, style, colour and position. With the present invention, the caption text may be displayed in a wide range of colours such as white, cyan and light yellow which offer a greater contrast ratio 55 than the colours offered by the existing LED type displays. Greater contrast ratios allow for easier reading by the audience. With the present invention there is no infrastructure requirement within the venue to enable patrons to receive captions. The venue must supply a method of sending audio to the captioner, for example, using Skype or other VOIP software or a proprietary audio system. The Smart Phone and Tablet PC devices used in the present invention are readily available from a large number of retail outlets, they are multipurpose, being used for telecommunications and many other applications, they are reasonably priced, and require no investment by the theatre venue, making it attractive to venues 10 when compared to existing technologies, and resulting in a system which is more affordable for theatre venues and theatre companies. The present invention provides total flexibility in terms of audience seating, as captions/subtitles are available to audience members wherever they are seated in 15 the theatre venue. The present invention includes PC- or MAC-based caption editing software allowing the captioner to create captions (whether through stenocaptioning output, qwerty output or voice recognition technology) and "cue" the caption text 20 at the same time as the actor speaks the relevant words or that the music plays or the sound effect is heard. The captions are sent to the display software, which displays the caption text on the Smart Phone or Tablet PC. The present invention includes an automation system allowing pre-defined events 25 in the theatre performance to trigger complete, pre-timed sequences of captions and subtitles to be sent, this part of the system being used for performances where the timing of the dialogue can be predicted. The present invention includes display software which receives caption/subtitle 30 text, colour and formatting information from the caption editing software and renders the text on the Smart Phone or Tablet PC display. The custom software according to this invention allows for complete flexibility in the choice of text font, text size, text placement, text colour and text formatting style. 35 The caption editing and display software components communicate with each other using TCP/IP communication protocols over any kind of physical LAN/WAN connection, which allows for the display device and the captioner to be located at a distance from each other, offering maximum flexibility given the space restrictions of a typical theatre environment and reduced costs. The present invention allows the theatre venue to deliver the chosen language of subtitles to each individual theatre patron.