My Letter to Lionsgate Studio

[savage1984]

Lions gate,

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

We really do depend on SDH because with it we can grasp better at what is going on during the movie. Without it we are lost, not knowing if the phone rang, guns were shot, who shouted, or any number of noises. I’d like to know when John J. Rambo shoot his machine gun, launches his rockets, or even gets shot at during the movie. We are truly lost!

It saddens me because I truly enjoy Lions gate movies! I feel that whoever works on Blu-ray disappoints me because when movies I truly want to see come out I know I will not have the 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 bought 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, a very well known and respected studio, are the only studio that doesn’t provide that accessibility for people who really need it?

My hearing wife's disappointment stems from knowing that I'm being left out of the experience when our favorite past time is enjoying a movie together. One night watching SAW for the first time was very upsetting because SAW is about being scared and suspense. Without the SDH feature, I couldn’t follow with screaming or background noises. It is like watching movies without sound. Not only would you be upset with your lack of High Definition experience, you would buy from 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 high definition experience (yours and mine). I'v included 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


Jeffrey, I've made some changes. Hopefully it works for you