This topic is still around, so I'll post the writing that I composed last
week.

Although the specifics of the technology to be employed is not final, I
believe that designing a system that is useful to the greatest number of
patrons will get the attention of the market and make these systems take
hold. The potential beneficiaries from alternative audio formats can be in
the hundreds of millions, not the fraction of that who are blind or
hearing impaired.

Movie Headphones

Imagine going to a movie theater with your favorite pair of
headphones, and plugging it into a jack in the arm of your chair.
After settling down in a seat with your popcorn, you adjust the
headphones to comfortably rest on your head, then during the
previews you increase or decrease the volume to suit your
preference.

You also have the option of selecting the audio track that suits
your need: basic, to hear the same sound that is going through
the speakers; Translation, to hear voices that simultaneously
convert the speech to or from a foreign language; or Descriptive,
to hear narration of the visual action, scene changes, facial
expressions, etc. as well as a reading of the written words.

BASIC - This audio track will be valuable to the general movie-goer who
wants to listen through headphones because it provides:

1. An enhanced stereo experience;
2. Volume, balance and tone control for personal preferences;
3. Muting of the extraneous and distracting sounds of a theater's
surroundings, especially talkative people.

Hard of hearing audience members will also greatly appreciate the
benefits of louder audio.

TRANSLATION - This audio track will be useful as an alternative
to subtitles on a foreign film, or as a way of reaching a
foreign-language speaker who wants to understand a domestic film,
over-dubbed in a familiar language.

DESCRIPTIVE - This audio track, in providing a narration of the
film's visual action, scene changes, facial expressions, etc.,
will be a major advance in making motion pictures accessible to
visually impaired or blind audience members who have been closed
out of the complete movie experience. Additionally, the reading
of the written words (such as credits, signs and documents) on
this track will be valuable to dyslexic viewers.*

(If the text for the description track is excerpted from the
movie's script, it may also be interesting for film students who
want to hear how the screenplay's author originally communicated
his vision of the shots and visual components to the people who
brought the film to life.)

*The Descriptive Video Service, (DVS) pioneered by WGBH, has
already advanced the art and technology of narration tracks of
this type for both VCR and TV broadcast. Because there is already
a demand and application for these formats, production of the DVS
track is merely moved up to the time of the theater release, not
a an extra cost.

Accommodating people who are vision-, hearing-, or reading-impaired
(dyslexic), will not only make the movie accessible,
but, with the way the Americans with Disabilities Act is heading,
it might just make it legal, as well.

Peter Seymour