When it comes to our media-consuming habits like going to the movies, we tend to take the simplest of things for granted, like being able to hear properly. This is especially apparent in the deaf community who many times simply either have to deal with the fact that they will not be able to fully enjoy the movie or wait till the movie is released on Blu-ray and watch it with subtitles. Unless you happen to have some colossal home theater system (and to be honest even then there are some drawbacks), the experience tends to get lost to a degree when a movie like Transformers 3 is consumed at home versus at the theater.

Sony, however, is looking to change this experience for anyone in need of subtitles for a movie by creating a special type of glasses that is capable of displaying subtitles on screen, just for you. Such a technology would allow anyone in need of subtitles to attend any showing they wish while others in the audience need not be bothered by the appearance of subtitles on the screen for them. The 3D-like glasses, which have a receiver attached to the side of them, will be in sync with the projector. Sony’s Tim Potter, who is part of this project in UK, explained it like this:

 “What we do is put the closed captions or the subtitles onto the screen of the glasses so it’s super-imposed on the cinema screen, [making it look] like the actual subtitles are on the cinema screen.” 

Till now, many movie theaters and film studios have shied away from providing many options to the special needs community, simply due to the costs of providing special screenings. However, if such a technology is able to come into full deployment, the movie studios will be able to capitalize on a missed market while those in need of such technology will be able to enjoy the movies at a time that is right for them. The Sony subtitle glasses will also have other uses like the ability for theaters to show foreign films while allowing anybody to watch and understand them. Sony will begin a trial system of this new technology in the UK sometime next year.

[Via BBC]