Deaf community to benefit from Freeview

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

Deaf community to benefit from Freeview functionality

Tens of thousands of hearing impaired people throughout the country stand to benefit from a Freeview approved set top box, which enables the recording of captions on either a VCR or a DVD recording device.

People can currently view captions via Teletext for many shows but are unable to record them, which prevents them from watching them later. Innovative technology within the Zinwell box, however, enables people to record both the show and captions at the same time.

Steve Browning, Freeview’s General Manager, says recent Nielson survey statistics illustrate more than 380,000 New Zealanders (11% of the population) use captions on Teletext. Given this figure is up more than 60,000 from 2005, the feature will come as welcome relief for viewers who were previously unable to enjoy their favourite shows at a later date.

“With VCR’s no longer available with a Teletext decoder only the Freeview approved Zinwell set top box provides this valuable service. And with the benefits of superior reception quality, caption recording makes a Freeview approved set-top-box an even more exciting broadcast solution for this important and substantial audience,” he says.

Rachel Noble Chief executive, Deaf Association of NZ Inc, is equally enthusiastic about the potential provided by Freeview technology.

“Access is a huge issue for the Deaf community. The provision of captioned movies and captioned television programmes has provided the Deaf and Hearing Impaired community a huge boost in enabling us to enjoy programmes and movies,” she says.

“However, we have not had the privilege of recording television programmes for later viewing in recent years as it was not possible to purchase a recorder with the ability to record subtitles on programmes. With Freeview technology the members of our community will be able to go out knowing that they will not miss their favourite programmes and also have the option of recording programmes for repeat viewing opportunities. It’s yet another positive step towards providing ‘access’ and equality for deaf people in our community,” she concludes.

More people use captions each month than view any of the following Teletext pages: Horse Racing, Sharemarket, Airfares, Business News, Sports Betting and Air Arrivals & Departures.

ENDS

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