Good Guys Eat Pie said:

I'm really excited for new Joss content, especially with Nathan Fillion.

I'm hoping that Dr. Horrible will be produced with a captioned/subtitled version, for all the deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. If Joss is really going to help expand the market for internet shows, then one thing that has to happen is captions/subtitles. It's not expensive (heck, I would volunteer for free to produce the captions for any of Joss' digital media), and it makes internet media accessible to millions of more fans.

How likely do you think it will be for Dr. Horrible to be accessible?

~ggep

You know… I think that's a great idea… I'm sure there will be subtitles on the DVD
version but I guess it may be harder with the online version – as far
as I know (and maybe I'm wrong) places like youtube don't give you the
ability to turn on/off things like captions….. but then, I doubt this
will be using youtube and maybe it's something they can build in to
whatever they're using to distribute it online.

That sounds like a really great idea! How many Internet videos have this at the moment (that aren't on YouTube)? I've never considered it before now, but really there isn't a reason not to, is there? Except that it might simply not occur to people (sad as that is).

Do you watch The Guild at all? I know they are producing Season 1 DVDs and they might have finalised them already, but it would be worth asking about it on their forum, too (http://www.watchtheguild.com/forums/).

Felicia Day is writing Season 2 at the moment so if they haven't done subtitles this time, it would be great for them to be aware of it now so they can plan to do it next time. Even though they distribute via YouTube (among other places) there might be ways around this – even having 2 versions available would be better than not at all.

There's a whole discussion about subtitling for foriegn languages on The Guild Forum which might be of interest http://www.watchtheguild.com/forums/the-show/subtitle-creation/page-1/

If Felicia is working on this for The Guild then chances are it'll get back to Joss. Whether it'll be ready for the proposed release date of before Comicon is anyone's guess – but we can hope!

worldofhiglet said:

That sounds like a really great idea! How many Internet videos have this at the moment (that aren't on YouTube)? I've never considered it before now, but really there isn't a reason not to, is there? Except that it might simply not occur to people (sad as that is).

Do you watch The Guild at all? I know they are producing Season 1 DVDs and they might have finalised them already, but it would be worth asking about it on their forum, too (http://www.watchtheguild.com/forums/).

Felicia Day is writing Season 2 at the moment so if they haven't done subtitles this time, it would be great for them to be aware of it now so they can plan to do it next time. Even though they distribute via YouTube (among other places) there might be ways around this – even having 2 versions available would be better than not at all.

VERY few internet videos have open captions, closed captions, or even just subtitles. The only videos I can think of that regularly feature them are shows that PBS places online. It is a very sad state of affairs, because the impending migration of tv and film content to the web is not covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. ADA requires studios and networks to provide captions for all television shows and news broadcasts, but not for online content. It is not expensive or difficult to make captions for online videos (see the very simple example I linked to in another post of mine in this thread). Quicktime and Flash, two of the most common media formats for online video both have built-in capability for producing closed captioning.

I have not watched The Guild yet, but I will soon (I've downloaded them all in iTunes). It is nice to hear that fans are talking about subtitles for the show. I just hope they don't forget English subtitles in addition to the foreign languages!

~ggep

oh….and that was an interesting little vid too

While Felicia won't have any direct control over the Doctor Horrible output it is likely that Joss will at least speak to her about it – The Guild was part of the inspiration for Doctor Horrible in the first place. But to see if we can find out, I've posted a question over there.

Fingers crossed!

For a long while, there have been codecs that include optional subtitles. Since I'm not all up-ons with whatever YouTube uses, I couldn't say if such can be encoded or not for YouTube.

If the native format does support it (not as an embedded image, but optional like DVD and TV subtitles), someone should upload a video with optional subtitles in YT's native format then rip it to see if the encoding stayed. If so, then it would be only a matter of the flash player handling it.

Still, there's the cost of embedding that stuff in professional productions.

Good Guys Eat Pie said:

I'm really excited for new Joss content, especially with Nathan Fillion.

I'm hoping that Dr. Horrible will be produced with a captioned/subtitled version, for all the deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. If Joss is really going to help expand the market for internet shows, then one thing that has to happen is captions/subtitles. It's not expensive (heck, I would volunteer for free to produce the captions for any of Joss' digital media), and it makes internet media accessible to millions of more fans.

How likely do you think it will be for Dr. Horrible to be accessible?

~ggep

sorry if I apear rude , but why would deaf people want to watch a musical?  Musicals are made for people who can hear the music. But I actually agree with releasing subtitled version for people ( like me) who are not from an english speaking country and find it hard to understand some of the dialogs and lyrics of the show.  all of his shows have dialogues very hard to understand without subtitles.

Actually, there are plenty of deaf people who would appreciate captioning on a musical show. Some deaf people have never heard music but still enjoy watching it. There are visual aspects of music as in a live performance or musical theatre that people enjoy. Other deaf people can hear some of the music but are unable to understand spoken or sung words.  Some are late-deafened people who still enjoy music becuase they can recall past experiences with it.  Having captioning-and thus knowing the words- can make the muiscal experience complete. There are also deaf people who dont care one way or another about music. Just like some hearing people. The decision to be able to watch any show should be made by the person watching it rather than by someone who has decided (or not) to include captions with their production. As a deaf person myself, I hope I will be able to see Dr Horrible with captions. I am certain that I will enjoy it!

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sorry if I apear rude , but why would deaf people want to watch a musical?  Musicals are made for people who can hear the music. But I actually agree with releasing subtitled version for people ( like me) who are not from an english speaking country and find it hard to understand some of the dialogs and lyrics of the show.  all of his shows have dialogues very hard to understand without subtitles.