SL = Signing language?

On 30 Oct, 14:44, Terry Pinnell wrote:
On coming to watch a couple of movies I've recorded on my Sky+ Box
recently I was surprised to see they have a signing language window
super-imposed, bottom right. (One was 'Under the Skin', recorded 2nd
October. I *think* the other was 'Clockwork Orange'.) I found them
unwatchable. I assume they were special versions of these films for
the deaf, and I just wasn't observant enough when I looked at the Sky+
programme. (It does seem a high proportion by mere chance though, that
2 of about 5 movies recorded over the month or two had this feature. I
can't recall the last time I ever saw such a movie on TV previously!)

When I backed out and viewed the movie details from Planner, it was
annotated with 'SL', which I'm guessing stands for 'Signing Language'?
Presumably this is also indicated on the top right section of the
information panel from the programme viewer? Yet after a quick browse
just now of about 20 imminent movies, I couldn't find a single one
with 'SL'. After exploring I've now also found AD, DD, DW, W, and S.
Where are the meanings of all these codes documented please?

I checked Settings to see if I could somehow switch this SL window
off, but saw nothing about it. While there I also saw an option called
'Audio Description'. I'll record one to see for myself, but meanwhile
can someone tell me what it means please. Is that perhaps a similar
thing for the blind?

Finally, changing topic a bit, I see that the information window for a
recording (and a programme) doesn't show the *channel*. Seems a
significant omission?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK


Just my tuppence worth. On several occasions I've recorded late night
signed repeats of programmes (both drama and documentary) that I
missed the first time round, and whilst this isn't an optimal
situation I haven't really found the presence of a signer a great
distraction at all, you just get used to it.

That said these have been programmes I really wanted to watch, so
perhaps the quality of the underlying material might make a difference
to how distracting an in-vision signer might be!

I can of course see that it could well be a bit too much to watch a
feature film like that though!

On coming to watch a couple of movies I've recorded on my Sky+ Box
recently I was surprised to see they have a signing language window
super-imposed, bottom right. (One was 'Under the Skin', recorded 2nd
October. I *think* the other was 'Clockwork Orange'.)

Is the film of Clockwork Orange in the same language as the book? I
would imagine that would be quite tricky to interpret strickly. A bit
like dubbing Teletubbies into other languages.

In article , Terry Pinnell
wrote:
Anyone with thoughts on that final query please? When viewing a
recording, surely one of the important facts you want to know is what
channel you recorded it from?*

Why? When I'm watching a programme I'm watching the programme, not the
channel. I couldn't give a monkey's what route it took to get to me, any
more than I care which bookshop supplied a book I'm reading or where I
bought a CD. If there are still more episodes to record, the details will
be in the on-screen guide or Digiguide, or the one I'm watching will be
so recent I'll remember having done it.

Rod.

In article om,
Mizter T wrote:
Just my tuppence worth. On several occasions I've recorded late night
signed repeats of programmes (both drama and documentary) that I
missed the first time round, and whilst this isn't an optimal
situation I haven't really found the presence of a signer a great
distraction at all, you just get used to it.

No more annoying than an extra animated DOG you mean...?

If a programme is sufficiently interesting I'll watch it despite quite
serious intrusions, but I'd still rather they weren't there. The
knowledge that this particular intrusion has been applied deliberately
and that we have the technology to achieve the same end in a better way
but have not done so is not reassuring.

Rod.

Roderick Stewart wrote:

In article , Terry Pinnell
wrote:
Anyone with thoughts on that final query please? When viewing a
recording, surely one of the important facts you want to know is what
channel you recorded it from?*

Why?

1. To check back on the published programme details, for a whole bunch
of possible reasons. In this particular case, I've already mentioned
the key one: to see if the fact that it was 'signed' was mentioned,
and I'd missed it, so that I can avoid doing so in future. But I might
also want to read what if anything the critics said, etc. Knowing the
channel greatly helps find it.

2. To determine if (say) the 140 minute movie includes commercials or
not. A significant factor here if we have a max of 2 hours to watch
it.

When I'm watching a programme I'm watching the programme, not the
channel. I couldn't give a monkey's what route it took to get to me, any
more than I care which bookshop supplied a book I'm reading or where I
bought a CD. If there are still more episodes to record, the details will
be in the on-screen guide or Digiguide, or the one I'm watching will be
so recent I'll remember having done it.

Rod.


--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Mark Carver wrote:
Sean Black wrote:

So is there any reason, this all can't be accessible via the red
button? Then any deaf people that want it can watch it, whilst not
spoiling things for everyone else.

Lack (read cost) of transmission bandwidth, and the difficulty of
merging two MPEG streams (clean programme + signer) within a 20 quid STB.

There's always been the panacea one day of an electronically generated
signer (within a suitable STB) controlled by relatively small packets of
data, that would be optional under viewer control, but that still seems
some way off ?

When I left in Nov 2004 R & D were working on it. There were a couple
of ways of doing it as I recall. As with AD and subtitles it would be
bitstream efficient.

Problem was to persuade the other broadcasters to join in! As with AD.
BBC AD uses the concept of "user defined" levels. The background and AD
levels set by the user on their STB.

All the other broadcasters wanted to use "broadcaster defined" where a
preset AD level was mixed in to the main audio and sent as an extra stream.

On 31 Oct, 07:15, Roderick Stewart
wrote:
In article om,

Mizter T wrote:
Just my tuppence worth. On several occasions I've recorded late night
signed repeats of programmes (both drama and documentary) that I
missed the first time round, and whilst this isn't an optimal
situation I haven't really found the presence of a signer a great
distraction at all, you just get used to it.

No more annoying than an extra animated DOG you mean...?

Ha! Well, in-vision singing is serving a good purpose.


If a programme is sufficiently interesting I'll watch it despite quite
serious intrusions, but I'd still rather they weren't there. The
knowledge that this particular intrusion has been applied deliberately
and that we have the technology to achieve the same end in a better way
but have not done so is not reassuring.

Rod.

As has already been stated, it would appear that we don't have the
technology - or rather, the current DTT standards do not appear to
allow for one video feed to be overlaid on top of another.

Plus I don't begrudge the inclusion of in-vision signing on late
repeats of programmes.

In article . com, Mizter T
wrote:
If a programme is sufficiently interesting I'll watch it despite quite
serious intrusions, but I'd still rather they weren't there. The
knowledge that this particular intrusion has been applied deliberately
and that we have the technology to achieve the same end in a better way
but have not done so is not reassuring.

Rod.

As has already been stated, it would appear that we don't have the
technology - or rather, the current DTT standards do not appear to
allow for one video feed to be overlaid on top of another.

In other words, all it would take would be a decision. It's not a
limitation of the technology.

Existing digiboxes may not have the capability, but it would be easy to
manufacture new ones that did. They'd contain about the same amount of
electronics and would be in every way compatible with existing
transmissions, so wouldn't need to be sold in specialist outlets and could
therefore be about the same price. The overlaid signing function could be
an option you could switch on or ignore as you wished, and in all other
respects the box would simply be an ordinary digibox. It could use one of
the red button channels, of which there seem to be several that are not in
use at any time.

They really should have thought of this when digital TV was being designed.
It's not as if optional piggyback services are a new concept; we've had
teletext since the 1970s, and the Americans have had piggyback audio on FM
broadcasts for a great deal longer than that. We've managed to implement
RDS, a service nobody asked for and which is probably ignored by more
people than use it, or even know they've got it. It's just another
opportunity missed through lack of thought - something that could have been
actually useful, which is what public service broadcasting is supposed to
be about.

Rod.

....snip...
We've managed to implement
RDS, a service nobody asked for and which is probably ignored by more
people than use it, or even know they've got it. It's just another
opportunity missed through lack of thought - something that could have
been
actually useful, which is what public service broadcasting is supposed to
be about.

I wonder how much of the design of RDS was fixing the "moving target"
problem with FM in cars followed by a period of "right, we can send digital
data and we've got spare bandwidth - what do we do with it?"

Paul DS.

I actually quite like RDS, I enjoy seeing what the station name is when
I'm travelling without having to wait until an ident or the news break,
and I do use the TA and TP (EON-TP is very useful if you're doing a long
car journey!)

I know these days you can just ring up the RAC and ask them, but back in
the 90s when none of that was available, it was dead handy sometimes
when you'd be doing the family trip up to Cumbria to see the
grandparents.