Why sign AND titles ?

Passivist

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A current debate in the UK, BSL demand is minimal to near none in media, (Around 2.5 to 4%), even deaf campaign groups don't put their heart into access campiagns for it. Most, near all deaf being literate, are happy with titles/captions and manage well enough without BSL which they say ISN'T a neeed, but a preference, so lower down the access priority. Is signed interpreting on-screeen just a sop to keep them quiet ? And has it ANYreal chance until a choice appears to take it off screen (Like the 888 option in the UK for titles).

The UK mainstream wouldn't put up with captions on everything, and until 888 appeared deaf had nothing really. IF there is technical and CHEAP wizardy to put BSL/ASL, at the end of a button, would the majority use that ? so far the consensus is NO, and sign left to 'specialist' deaf programs instead or occasional news inclusion at obscure times. Even the net access hasn't wholly embraced sign has it ? as an access to the net medium, again most happy preferring text, so sign is just for deaf socializing ? and information better done via text ? This raises educational access issues surely ?
 
Passivist said:
IF there is technical and CHEAP wizardy to put BSL/ASL, at the end of a button, would the majority use that ?

This isn't part of the NTSC or PAL standards, but it could work very easily for DVDs. Subtitles on DVDs are just bitmaps, not actually ASCII or otherwise encoded text. I'm not positive, but I bet you could encode video in that - it all depends on whether the standard defines color with enough granularity.

'Twould take up quite a bit of room on a DVD, but blueray and HD-DVD are coming out now, and there's always Divx players in the meantime. I suspect it could be done today, with a bit of coding to convert video into the subtitle format correctly; the barrier is more likely expense.
 
Perhaps the only realistic option is for the dedicated sign user to go for their own channel ? Can they provide content for one ? or have the capability ? the UK hasn't.
 
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