Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2021 February 21

= February 21 =

Noticing two things when I watch the news
When I watch the news on TV or online, I notice two things. What are the purposes of a sign language interpreter doing sign language during press conferences? Does sign language interpretation hearing impaired people understand what the speaker is speaking about? When I view stories about a topic and the victim's family goes on the news and them seeking justice, I notice them showing the faces of some adults and blurring the faces of children at the same time. I also notice sometimes that they blur or pixelate the victim's or victim's children's faces. The news media also censors other adult's faces too. What are the rationale of blurring human faces in photo and video? Do they do this for protection, privacy, safety and security reasons? Is pixelation used to protect the subject's privacy, safety and security?

In this video on CBS Los Angeles for example, I saw some faces being pixelated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1B4hV_Yf1Q

47.145.113.238 (talk) 08:52, 21 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Blurring faces can be done for any combination of these reasons. In the video about hate crime against Asian Americans, the parents may not have given permission to show their kids recognizably, which otherwise might have led to confrontations with their schoolmates. Avoiding drawing attention from child predators is another consideration. Not showing unconvicted suspects in an identifiable way is routine; identification might lead to innocent persons being evicted from their homes and fired from their jobs, or possibly worse forms of extrajudicial punishment. Of course a hearing-impaired person who understands a sign language would understand the sign-language interpreter (provided they use the same sign language and are proficient). That is the whole point of sign language, and I do not understand why one might question this. --Lambiam 12:35, 21 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Regarding the interpreter, I assume your question isn't "why do they help the hearing impaired?" but "why don't they "simply" use closed captions?". The latter is a good question.


 * Basically, live closed captioning isn't the best choice for a press conference (or any other live event) where important, timely information is being provided. For one thing, closed captioning isn't always available or accessible on the customer side; for another, closed captioning tends to be much less accurate than the average sign language interpreter. For other purposes (say, sports) that doesn't matter much; a hearing-impaired fan's enjoyment of ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball won't be much affected if the stenotype operator types "Cleveland Idiots" instead of "Cleveland Indians" - which, by the way, actually happened once - but there could be real-world repercussions if a city under a deep freeze announces a warming station and the caption reads 7725 Market Street when the actual warming station is at 7735 Maldon Street. (It also might be easier to find an ASL interpreter than a stenotype operator and machine, especially on short notice. Certainly it's cheaper to hire one person than to hire one person and rent a machine as well.) 24.76.103.169 (talk) 20:07, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about the US, but note that AFAIK, in modern times most commercial live captioning in Europe and elsewhere does not use a stenotype operator or machine. Instead it relies on a* listener repeating the spoken words (called a re-speaker) with some additions e.g. for punctuation into a speech recognition machine [//blog.ai-media.tv/blog/what-is-live-captioning]/[//blog.ai-media.tv/blog/what-is-respeaking] [//www.radiotimes.com/tv/current-affairs/how-do-tv-subtitles-work/] [//www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/phcb/D-PHCB-SIS_A.03-2011-PDF-E.pdf] [//luisperezgonzalez.org/publications/the-routledge-handbook-of-audiovisual-translation/chapter-7-respeaking-subtitling-through-speech-recognition-pablo-romero-fresco/]. The reason to use re-speakers is generally cost, it's far easier to develop the skills to become a re-speaker than to become a stenotype operator so it's cheaper to hire one. Even with trained professionals, speech recognition is hardly perfect which can lead to notable errors e.g. [//www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/chinese-new-year-bbc-blunder-welcome-year-whores-9102117.html] (this one is particularly relevant as it's easier to see how it can arise from speech recognition but I think it's unlikely to happen from a stenotype error), [//www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-41473443], [//twitter.com/samwessexgirl/status/1334941962575765504] (well I think the last one is a speech recognition error, I'm not sure what was meant though so I'm not sure). *=As I understand it, normally only one re-speaker is working at a time, but in a long broadcast it's possible multiple may work together in shifts. Remembering that they are generally re-speaking for everyone in the broadcast so are generally talking a lot more than the anchor or whatever. Nil Einne (talk) 13:24, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Silence of the Lambs
I am watching S.O.T.L. at home on my smartphone. If I, say, close the drapes and turn off the lights, will I be able to enjoy the film more? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.66.147.53 (talk) 12:49, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You don't enjoy Silence of the Lambs – you survive it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.125.75.168 (talk) 17:05, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It would help in adding to your own immersive atmosphere, in much the same way as for playing a horror video game. The dimness of light is said to enhance your senses and reflexes. If you don't care about immersion though, I'd say the difference is minimal. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 17:48, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it have been far quicker to just close the drapes and turn off the lights and see whether you enjoy it more? Rather than asking strangers on the internet whether they think you'd enjoy it more? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  17:51, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You'll enjoy it more if you have a friend over for a snack. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:34, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * And don't forget the Chianti. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:55, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe some lotion. Maineartists (talk) 22:29, 21 February 2021 (UTC)