My Letter to Lionsgate Studio

[Caligula]

Lions gate,

Lions gate Studio has millions of diversified fans and I hope the studio will take its customer’s concern seriously as it was Studio’s. The concern I have as a Deaf movie lover in America, who enjoys and buy your movies on Blu-ray. Unfortunately that my Lions gate High Definition experience is limited by your studio’s lack providing Subtitles for Deaf and hearing impaired (SDH). The only Lions gate discs’ subtitles were offered, English subtitle with only dialogue and Spanish. Others (Deaf or not) and I felt that we were excluded from our movie experience without SDH accessible.

We really do depend on SDH because we can grasp better at what is going on during the movie, without it. We are lost while not knowing if phone rang or, gun shots, someone shouts or many noises. I’d like to know when John J. Rambo shoot his machine gun and launches his rockets or even shot at during the movie. We are truly lost! It saddens me because I truly enjoy Lions gate movies! I felt that whoever worked on Blu-ray disappointed me when movies I truly want to see and knowing I will not have full Blu-ray experience. I am very pleased with Fox, Warner Bros, Paramount, DreamWorks, Disney, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, New Line Cinema, and Sony with their effort including SDH and other subtitles. That’s where my money is going mostly of the time and there are times I wished I had brought most of Lions gate movies. I do buy and am not satisfied with my money’s worth. Don’t you find this disappointing knowing that you, one of well known and only studio don’t provide that accessibility for people who really need it?

My hearing wife is very disappointed too because she knows how I love watching movies with her and felt I was left out too. Our night watching SAW for the first time was very upsetting because saw is about being scared and suspense, then finds out that it didn’t have no SDH feature and I couldn’t follow with screaming or background noises. It is like watching movies without sound, you would be upset with lack of your High Definition experience and you would buy other studios that provide the beyond high Definition Blu-ray experience.

Like I said, I hope the studio will take its customer concerns seriously because I truly want them to enhance our (yours and mine) high definition experience better. I pasted Subtitle for Deaf and Hearing Impaired information from wiki.com just to back me up.


SDH
"SDH" is an American term the DVD industry introduced. It is an acronym for "Subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing", and refers to regular subtitles in the original language where important non-dialog audio has been added, as well as speaker identification, useful when the viewer cannot otherwise visually tell who is saying what.
High definition disc media (HD DVD, Blu-ray disc) uses SDH subtitles as the sole method because technical specifications do not require HD to support line 21 closed captions. Some Blu-ray discs, however, are said to carry a closed caption stream that only displays through standard definition connections. Many HDTVs allow the end–user to customize the captions, including the ability to remove the black band.
Use by those not deaf or hard-of-hearing
Although same-language subtitles and captions are produced primarily with the deaf and hard-of-hearing in mind, many hearing film and television viewers choose to use them. This is often done, because the presence of closed captioning and subtitles ensures that not one word of dialog will be missed. Films and television shows often have subtitles displayed in the same language, if the speaker has a speech disability and/or an accent. In addition, captions may further reveal information that would be difficult to pick up on otherwise. Some examples of this would be the song lyrics; dialog spoken quietly or by those with unfamiliar accents; or supportive, minor dialog from background characters. It is argued that such additional information and detail will enhance the overall experience and allow the viewer a better grasp on the material. Furthermore, people learning a foreign language may sometimes use same-language subtitles to better understand the dialog while not having to resort to a translation.


Thank you for your time and hope to hear a response from you.
Jeffrey



MODS DO NOT CHANGE OR MERGE THIS THREAD!

Guys feel free to discuss and help other blu ray fellow out