Closed Captioning Blog

Maybe not. It seems as though the 3D craze has not quite entered into domestic television sets as of yet. One reason could be the cost—they are still considerably more expensive than standard HD TVs. Many consumers are also bothered by the fact that you are required to wear 3D glasses and most need to be purchased separately. Another potential deterrent for many viewers is the lack of closed captioning. Currently, there is no standard way for TV providers to encode 3D captions. Some 3D programs have offered open-captions for certain events and simply broadcast it on a second channel. However, this is obviously not the ideal solution and there are engineers  searching for ways to ensure 3D captioning of television in the future. Consumers may also think that they can just turn subtitles on while watching a 3D movie but this can also be problematic. If you use 2D subtitles on a 3D movie, the text will be displayed at a constant depth but if a 3D element in the background is blocked by that text it can become distracting and disorienting to the viewer.

So while 3D technology has consumers excited by films such as “Avatar” and “Monsters vs. Aliens,” it seems that for everyday viewing purposes, many consumers are still waiting for all the 3D bugs to be worked out and for closed captions and subtitles to be easily available.