Movie Chain Pushes Captioning Glasses Effort

Regal theaters has a goal of having 6000 movie screens in operation that work with Sony captioning glasses by the end of the month. The nation's largest theater chain is investing more than $10 million in the project that puts closed-caption text inside the lenses. The display stays right with the dialogue on the screen. For the visually impaired user, there are headphones that play dialogue from the film. Regal Entertainment Group's senior VP Raymond Smith has pushed the effort--partially because his son Ryan is deaf and he tested the equipment as it was developed. Regal says it was not motivated by legal pressure. Nine years ago, New Jersey's attorney general took Regal to court, accusing the chain of violating ADA law. The suit was eventually settled. The glasses are free to customers but cost individual theaters more than $1700--a price tag that includes the transmitter and receiver. The glasses are already in use at many theaters across the country.