Dear Annette

You might try the new Magpie stuff that is a free download. Although
it's a bit buggy, I found that I could caption video files within an
afternoon (never having done it before). It works with Realplayer,
Mediaplayer and Quicktime.

My thought is that you could rip the videos as AVI files or the like
and caption them yourself (obtaining permission from the rights holder,
naturally). Burn the results on a CD and it can be played back and
projected from a laptop on whatever player you prefer. This is
honestly a lot easier to do in practice than it first appears. It
would also have the advantage that the subtitles could be printed out
as a transcript. (The system also supports audio description, intended
to support blind and visually impaired students. Again, this is
surprisingly easy to use, providing you can plug a mic into your sound
card.)

You will gather that I am a great believer in the principle that
electronic digital files are the prefered medium for supporting
students with disabilities: the method of presentation is in your hands
and you're not tied to the hardware selection of others, often the
hardware of an earlier generation.

Regards, Bernard

ps, the Magpie stuff can be found in the following:


Contact: Mary Watkins, Media Access Group at WGBH
617 300-3400 v, 617 33-2489 TTY
[log in to unmask]
http://ncam.wgbh.org

MAGpie 2.0 is now available!

Free, do-it-yourself caption- and description- authoring tool
for digital multimedia developed by the CPB/WGBH National Center
for Accessible Media (NCAM)

Boston, MA, May 7, 2002. A public beta version of the Media
Access Generator (MAGpie), NCAM's free captioning and audio-description
software for digital multimedia, is now ready for downloading
and testing. Funding for MAGpie 2.0 is provided by the National
Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR),
U.S. Department of Education, and the Mitsubishi Electric America
Foundation
(MEAF).

MAGpie is the ideal authoring environment for multimedia specialists,
publishing companies or service providers who want to add captions,
subtitles and audio descriptions to their work. However, others will
also benefit from its use. Research performed by WGBH has demonstrated
that caption authoring is a valuable classroom activity. Children who
produce caption files for short video clips tend to write more, and
their writing skills improve rapidly. MAGpie is friendly to those who
are new to multimedia, educators and even to young users.

MAGpie 2.0 is Java-based. It will run on Windows 95, 98, NT4, 2000
and XP, and on Macintosh OS X. There is currently no support for
earlier versions of the Mac OS.

To download MAGpie 2.0, please go to:

http://ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/magpie/magpie2_registration.html

You will be asked to fill out a brief form, after which you will
taken to the MAGpie 2.0 public beta Web site. Here you will
find downloading and installation instructions, a complete MAGpie
demonstration project containing captions and audio descriptions,
documentation about using MAGpie 2.0, plus a list of new features, a
list of known bugs and problems, and instructions for subscribing or
unsubscribing to the MAGpie listserv. Please note: Screen
reader support currently is incomplete. NCAM is working on this
problem and will announce an update when a new version of the software
is ready.

Please send all comments and suggestions for improvements to the
MAGpie beta listserv. If you have questions which are not addressed
by the MAGpie beta Web site, please send mail to [log in to unmask]

The Media Access Group at WGBH has offices in Boston, New York and
Los Angeles, and includes DVS, which has made television, film and
video more enjoyable to viewers who are blind or visually impaired
since 1990, and The Caption Center— the world's first captioning
agency— founded in 1972. The third branch of the Media Access Group,
the CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media, is a research,
development and advocacy entity that works to make existing and
emerging technologies accessible to all audiences. Members of
the Group's collective staff represent the leading resources and
experts in their fields. For more information about access
services, visit the Media Access Group Web site access.wgbh.org.


On Tue, 18 Jun 2002 11:48:20 +0100 "Annette Davidson (csaad)"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> We're trying to make the video materials shown in classes available to Deaf students by showing subtitles. Unfortunately the machine we got for one of our students is no longer available(this is the one suggested by the RNID web-site) - can anyone suggest an alternative?
>
> Annette Davidson
> Adviser to Students with Disabilities

----------------------
Bernard Doherty
Student Adviser
ACCESS Centre
Anglia Polytechnic University

Tel: 01223 363271 x2534
Fax: 01223 417730
Minicom: 01223 576155
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