I hope you can pass this on to the right people at Apple. I've been unable to find any contacts there other than the usual "blackhole" emails on their web site.

Thanks!
BG


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Dear whom it may concern at Apple,

I'm a longtime user of Apple products dating back to the original Macintosh, and I'm a shareholder and a believer in Apple's vision.

I'm writing because I wanted to share a concern I have about iTunes.

I'm deaf, and I can't view text-captioning with downloaded videos on iTunes. It bugs me that I feel left out of this paradigm shift from broadcast to internet viewing. I am able to access closed-captioning on TV/DVDs/Movies to understand what's being said, and depend heavily on that.

I downloaded one of the Lost episodes and it hit me that there weren't any options for me to understand what was being spoken unlike the other forms of media. That being said, I want to pass along 2 suggestions/scenarios that I hope Apple will incorporate into iTunes because, not only do I want to be able to enjoy it myself, I want 28 Million other deaf and hard-of-hearing people (10% of US population) to enjoy the Apple experience too.

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1) Scenario 1: Create a new feature in the iTunes Menu-bar that lets the viewer toggle captioned text "on-or-off" while watching videos.

iTunes is built on top of the Quicktime framework so text-captioning should be supported.

It doesn't cost any more money for Content Providers to provide captioned text files (timecode markers) along with their content because it was already created for and streamed during broadcast. This should already exist and be shared.

In this first scenario, iTunes viewers would toggle the
text-captioning "on" within iTunes to view text-captioning in the video.

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2) Scenario 2: Content Providers, through iTunes provide an alternative video download option containing embedded captioned text (like subtitled movies)

Another possible approach would be to have Apple request that Content Providers also provide text-captioned copies for these who choose to download that version instead of non-captioned files.

In this second scenario, All deaf/HOH people could simply just purchase the captioned files in iTunes instead.

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I hope this feedback and these 2 suggestions help. If you have any better ideas, I'm all for it! Please pass this along to the right people in Apple, so that maybe, hopefully, something can be done to address this. Would love to hear back from you and or whoever else gets this.

Thank you for your time!

BG

[Brad]

I couldn't agree more.

CC in QuickTime files is really a no-brainer. I hope somebody in power reads your message and can bring some support to it.

[Legodude522]

I'm hard of hearing. I'll support you.

[intlplby]

worst comes to worse just send your mail message to newspapers.....

if it shows up in newspapers, apple can't ignore it...... is there anything from the Americans with Disabilities Act that can help.....

contact a national organization, usually some of those groups know how to pressure the right people......

call up the Apple Public Relations office and talk to a PR rep and tell them your problem and if they don't give a satisfactory response, head to a newspaper.....

especially a very liberal newspaper, maybe one in San Franscisco.... they maybe be likely to consider printing, especially if you contacted apple first and did not get a good response...

i think if you try to go through apple the way you are, it will take a while before it gets implemented....

although it is quite unfortunate that you are deaf, fortunately, in the US, there is a lot of protection for those with disabilities.

[dfiler]

Hmmm... I wonder how the laws are worded with regard to CC and internet distribution. I'll have to ask my step mother who is deaf and seems to know all these details.

You'd be suprised how many pieces of legislation the deaf community has brought about in the past couple of decades in the united states. There are many protections and requirements which, while widely unheard of, are founded in solid precedence.

I suspect that it will only take a properly worded letter to apple legal from a deaf/hoh activist group... that is, if there is indeed a law that addresses this. Otherwise, I suspect it will take around a year and then CC will be quietly introduced.

[torifile]

This is a very reasonable request. I don't think that going aggressively at Apple is the best way to approach the situation. Chances are, they'll want to accommodate as much as they can, so I'd recommend approaching this situation from the perspective that they'll WANT to do it. Don't resort to threats (yet).

[Mac+]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I never really gave CC much thought before wrt viewing media in iTunes, but you are right bgramer. I hope Apple sees your proposal and is able to implement it by the next update. ie: they get to work on it pronto!

(Maybe one of the rumor/leakage sleuths/monkeys employed by Apple sees this and can pass it on.)

[Sauvblanc]

I'm deaf as well and am rather a bit of an activist about it.

In this case however, I wonder if Apple had a practical reason for doing this? I don't think they're unaware of their deaf/HOH customer base as they did post a blurb on their website about 2 yrs ago that mentioned deaf people using iSight to "chat" with each other over long distances via sign language. I can vouch for the fact that it works well if you're a lipreader, too. So they know the impact that their products have under Systems Preferences they do make accomodations for people with various disabilities.

Playing the devil's advocate for a moment, I wonder if the reason why Apple doesn't encode CC or subtitles on downloadable music videos or TV shows has to do with the fact that they see these as things that people will put on their iPod and watch on the go rather than on their computer screen? Reading captions on a screen the size of an iPod would be pretty hard, I'd imagine. So rather than provide that option they figure that if you *really* want to watch a TV show with captions you'll get the DVD series instead?

Not that it in any way justifies the lack of captions, but I don't think Apple is that stupid.

Just my $0.02.

[BenP]

Originally Posted by Sauvblanc Playing the devil's advocate for a moment, I wonder if the reason why Apple doesn't encode CC or subtitles on downloadable music videos or TV shows has to do with the fact that they see these as things that people will put on their iPod and watch on the go rather than on their computer screen? Reading captions on a screen the size of an iPod would be pretty hard, I'd imagine. So rather than provide that option they figure that if you *really* want to watch a TV show with captions you'll get the DVD series instead?

Also, the iPod is hardly targeted at deaf people. Maybe Apple decided no deaf person would buy a video iPod since its main function, playing music, would be worthless. And the iTMS is targeted at people who have/will get iPods.

Still, I'm kind of disappointed because Apple's usually very good on the Universal Access thing.

[ast3r3x]

While I do think it Apple should include CC support in iTunes/QT, I am not sure how viable it is on the iPod.

What I do think though is that they probably decided it's not practical on the iPod, and since iTMS video content is directed towards the iPod.

[dfiler]

I think it is a mistake to conflate video downloads with iPod playback.

Portable video will never be as popular as portable music or even as popular as normal video playback. While the iTMS videos are encoded to be playable on an iPod, I doubt this is the target, long term presentation paradigm.

As Jobs said in his recent Time interview, "video is along for the ride". Since the iPod is capable of video playback, it is a why not feature.

The offering of 5 shows is obviously being used as a test platform. A test not just for the technology, but also for dipping a toe in the marketing and licensing waters.

When apple decides to seriously pursue the video download market, I'm sure they'll include CC on all videos... or at least when the original source material was CC'd.

I don't expect closed captioning will work on iPod videos (screen size too small and the text would not be legible anyways), but I do expect at the very least it should be available in the iTunes application when viewed on a 15" monitor or larger. This applies to both movies and music videos. By the way - for those of you who can hear music like me (I am hard of hearing) but could not understand the lyrics, there is a widget available (for those with Mac OS X 10.1.4.x) that will locate lyrics for your favorite iTunes selection.

[arnoct]

I've watched subtitled (japanese) tv shows on my ipod and I've had no problem watching them. (I also have bad eyesight so that's saying something.) You just have to make sure the subtitles are big enough.