[blindkid] DV in Theaters and on DVD specifically the Hobbit..Help!

Richard Holloway rholloway at gopbc.org
Mon Apr 1 03:29:08 UTC 2013


There is probably a little closer to a 4-year window of films where a larger number of DVD titles on DVD. To help create a clearer picture, I think the following is a pretty accurate count of movies released with DVS (Audio Description) on DVD. I borrowed the data from the link I provided earlier. These titles run the gamut from kid friendly G-Rated films like Toy Story (all three Toy Story movies have DVS) to grown up R-Rated films, but there are roughly 50 to 70 films available which most parents would probably find appropriate for family viewing now available.

Year	Quantity

2013	22 (as of this date, March 31)
2012	86
2011	80
2010	49
2009	12
2008	7
2007	4
2006	4
2005	3
2004	1
2003	4
2002	0
2001	1
2000	0

Clearly, the big jump started in 2010. I wrote an article last summer on this topic though the information changes so fast it is hard to keep things current. Lots more local theaters now run films DVS options. Many Regal cinemas (and some others which Regal owns) now offer every screening of every film with DVS. Unlike watching a DVD, the blind patron wears a headset which adds ONLY the description while they listen to the standard soundtrack over the theater sound track.

With DVD's the background sound is generally turned down to make the DVS easier to hear. The theater option is to make the description a bit too loud but it works quite well with the newer system. The older system we tried a few times at several AMC theaters had many more issues. I can explain part of why if anyone is curious, but the reasons don't matter a lot. It was bad before, now it is getting better. (I'm an audio engineer by training, so I actually find the details interesting.)

DVD's can offer many audio track options, like alternative languages (as mentioned before) plus director's interviews and the like. Frequently they offer more than one release, adding extra features or deleting them and changing the price point. The $5 budget DVD's are often less feature-rich than the expensive copies, though I've seen DVS on cheap discs too, now and then. The point being there are many options they leave off of many discs. I wish DVS was always there, but as of now most every feature film that comes out gets at least one DVS track recorded. FAR fewer get released with them.

Again, I'd suggest checking out the link. http://www.acb.org/adp/dvds.html  Find the films you want, then check THOSE packages in the store to confirm content, but in most cases, the retail release of the DVD will have DVS listed. The main problems in the past were with certain rental titles where the distributor did not include DVS on the rental copies.

There are exceptions, especially where multiple releases exist. Finding Nemo was recently re-released with DVS. The original DVD did not have this option. Generally Blu-ray releases are the same as DVD's in that both will have DVS or neither will. The Incredibles DVD's I checked did not have DVS listed and the Incredibles Blu-ray set I bought showed only to have DVS on the Blu Ray version but when I checked it was on the (included) DVD too.

Now if you want DVS for Star Wars, there is 6-disc Blu-ray ONLY set with DVD on all six movies. (I do not think the 3 bonus discs in the set have any DVS.) So far, I have not seen DVS on any Star Wars DVD's.

In case you are not familiar, Blu-ray is a higher definition format that looks physically like a DVD (and like a CD) but just as most CD's will play on most DVD players but not vice-versa, so you can play DVD's on a Blu-ray player, but Blu-Ray's play only on Blu-ray players.

Here's the article I mentioned- https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/fr/fr31/3/fr310312.htm

The acb.org link has a DVD section (clearly marked) which has a listing by year of every commercial DVD the administrator of the page is aware of with Audio Description. 

Each year has a separate page. 2013 is first, and the list runs newest to oldest, so to find new releases, look at the top of the list. DVS movies generally appear within a day or two of release.

I have traded quite a few emails with the fellow who runs that part of the site and even helped clear up a couple of mistakes / omissions he had, but the site was generally very accurate to begin with. He updates the site regularly. Nothing else I have found on-line comes close in completeness, accuracy, and timely updates!

We have something like 60 or 70 DVS titles here at home, nearly all are kid-friendly titles. I think there were maybe 2 or 3 discrepancies between my list and the site I mentioned. I suspect site movie lists for older kids and adults are similarly accurate. I keep hoping he has forgotten or overlooked some titles because we have very nearly every DVS family title which he has listed. So far, that's not the case, so we watch for new releases all the time. When new releases come out with DVS (like recent 2013 releases: Frankenweenie, Hotel Transelvania, Monsters Inc. (the re-release) Wreck It Ralph, and Rise of the Guardians), every time I find a new one with DVS, it is already posted on the site. I know I found one DVS DVD was on the site the second day it was out.

It is a bit late now, but Rise of the Guardians is a good Easter Title (much Easter Bunny content) as well as (no surprise here) Hop, which is also a DVS title.

As I understand it, other countries such as the UK and Canada have had legal mandates in place for quite a while, which seem to cause a much larger number of DVD's to be released with DVS there. There was a legal loophole which delayed a lot of DVS programming for broadcast here, and I think it did the same for DVD releases to some degree. Be aware that you can order these titles from other countries BUT they may not play on your home player. There are work-arounds but they are complicated. I keep thinking of getting all the UK Harry Potters with DVS because I know they released those there with DVS. I have tried to contact Warner Brothers and ask why they don't offer DVS on these US releases. So far my inquiries have been ignored. Most people I contact about audio description tend to ignore me. I assume there are not enough potential users of the product to concern these huge companies.

For older films, there is one other alternative, but it is entirely hit-or-miss. There are existing VHS (as in Video Tape!) copies of many programs with DVS which exist and float around. Many of those were never released on DVD (at least with DVS). I'm not certain of how they were made. I suspect they may have bought standard VHS tapes and re-recorded them with modified audio. The tapes have retail packaging but the DVS info on the package is clearly added with stickers.

Also, don't forget there are DVS movies on TV as well as TV shows and those numbers are growing as well. It is all quite frustrating and confusing, but way better than it was even 3 or 5 years ago! Those CAN be recorded (with DVS) in some ways as well. Once you figure our the process it is pretty easy, if you have the right equipment. The biggest problem there is finding what is on when, though I have recently learned that the NFB Newsline lists a number of DVS programs on TV schedules.

	-RH

On Mar 31, 2013, at 5:33 PM, Penny Duffy wrote:

> I spent a  hour in the dvd section looking for dvd that had descriptions.
> Different studios list it differently its rare to find it in movies older
> than 2 years (though there are some)  Disney seems to have gotten good at
> adding descriptions in recent movies.  I could take 5 movies
> WITH descriptions and its listed 5 different ways. Sometimes they have a
> icon sometimes they don't. Some times its listed under languages. I just
> found the back to the Hobbit and its surprising like you said  its not
> included. Since there was a track made it would have been additional
> content to include.  They have it in French and Spanish though.
> 




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