Options
What idiot has inflicted Time Team with signing?
BBBM Andy
Posts: 35
Forum Member
✭
I just ast down to watch Time Team on C4+1 and found someone in their infinite wisdom has decided to force us to watch it with some distracting woman doing sign language across half of the picture!:mad:
I'm annoyed as hell about it! :mad: I've already both rang and written to C4, but I'm sure my comments will get filed in the bin as usual.
Why do they need sign language when it is so easy to add subtitles, which can be switched on or off by the viewer?
Why not simulcast a signed version on 4Seven, instead of waiting until tomorrow night to make us watch a repeat?
My answer to C4 is that I've now dumped Time Team from my viewing week. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
I'm annoyed as hell about it! :mad: I've already both rang and written to C4, but I'm sure my comments will get filed in the bin as usual.
Why do they need sign language when it is so easy to add subtitles, which can be switched on or off by the viewer?
Why not simulcast a signed version on 4Seven, instead of waiting until tomorrow night to make us watch a repeat?
My answer to C4 is that I've now dumped Time Team from my viewing week. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
0
Comments
To answer the question why signing as well as subtitles?
Some deaf people can't use subtitles which is why there is signing for them
Because signing is some people's first language, and TV isn't solely produced for your benefit.
Are you really telling me that deaf people can't read?
I could understand the signing thing if it happened a few years ago when some people still had analogue TV and no teletext, so they may not have had access to subtitles. But now everyone has digital so subtitles are universally accessible.
They don't inflict audio description for the blind on us without the ability to turn it off!
Whilst some (d) Deaf people can read. If you are reading a newspaper or a book you do it at your own rate not at the pace determined by people speaking as in subtitles.
It is one of the failures is that no one yet has found a cost effective way of doing closed signing ...
We have being trying for a long time....
But for the amount if signing required dong it in vision is a just about affordable option.
BTW many (D) deaf organisations do not favour closed methods (or overnight or community channel signing. . )
I am not against signing but can't help that this is an example of Channel 4 imposing a politically correct doctrine on its viewers without considering the overwhelming majority and their wishes.
While you may not appreciate sign language, sign language isn't just about words (or signs). You may not pick up on it but signers get across emotions, moods, nuance and context that subtitles can't. As an exercise why don't YOU switch of the volume of your TV and rely singularly on the subtitles? I bet you would soon get fed up.
And with STB at a few tens of pounds it is very unlikely that the home equipment required would ever be seen to be affordable...
What is required is to send the image of the signer and a keying signal to cut it into the main picture. SO you need an extra two vision channels all be it one of limited active area and the other of limited colour. .. So your STB needs three decoders working frame accurately , then the processing to put it all together ... And compensating sound and subtitle delays.
And of course the system has to have space for the extra video streams ... So you might as well do as it is done at the moment ... Open subtitling ....
Unless you access an IP stream ... But agian this might as well be open signing ...
So if there is universal broadband then subject to legislation change the signing could be on IP only...
Avatars have been tried and may provide an answer but it still is extra bit rate ... Plus a specialised encoder and decoder to render the image and then all the Keyers, delays etc....
Because the regulation says so ...
The high quota (10%) broadcasters have to have SL on the channel .. And the waver which uses the community channel is only available to the low quota broadcasters.
And is not well liked by the lobby groups.
C4 is a publicly owned broadcaster with only one PSB channel which runs at a loss .. Why should its commercial channels be used to enable it to satisfy its PSB requirements ....
We/ the government own it after all.
There are a few threads on it, but the short answer is not reasonably.
To superimpose a live signer would require a dedicated channel (or you could possibly fit 4 signer sub channels into the space of one normal channel), but that requires additional bandwidth and a completely new set of hardware to cope with it.
To do it like signs (data received and reconstructed from an instruction set on the receiver), is impractical due to the sheer number of signs, the fact you need to have them animated smoothly, you need to do both hands/arms and facial expressions, and at the same time allow for new signs.
Basically it would require a fairly hefty CPU with a good graphics card and lots of ram and flash memory. And that's after you solve the minor problem of sending the information needed to tell the system what signs...
IIRC one of the long time posters on here was involved in a project to try and develop a signing system for a fairly long time as the broadcasters did look into it (I think it was the BBC doing work into it).
[edit]
Whilst I was distracted with the post reply box open technologist posted:p
There were quite a few occasions in the programme when things being talked about were obscured by the woman signing.
It was on the C4 version as well which is where I saw it .
Why should they,they have nothing to apologise for.
So you are expecting D3&4 to start up another service ...?
Actually a shared stream was suggested for the High quota output. But there ere scheduling clashes , reluctance of one broadcaster to use anyone other than D4&4 for their output and a fear that a mux provider / coding company may make their SL pictures look different(better) than what they were doing on the main channel.
There Was a lot of opposition from the Lobby groups as well.
Hence the on channel overnight solution - which coupled by cheap PVRs is a very good answer as is the low quota using community channel.
likewise if the quote is increased (rather unlikely) this may Be accompanied by the service going as a IP simulcast.