Going to the movies is a great way of relaxing after a hard day and forgetting about your worries. But how many of you have ever thought about what it feels like for a visual or hearing impaired to go to the same motion picture? Well, you probably haven't, because most of them are frustrated enough to completely give up this activity.

But now there is hope of improving their life, at least regarding this aspect. A new technology, called Mo Pix, offers them a unique movie experience, one they never had access to. Mo Pix is in fact a portable system that includes a technology called DVS Theatrical and patented "Rear Window" captioning system.

The first one, DVS Theatrical, provides the visual impaired with a rich descriptive narration, delivered via an infrared listening system. The special seats will be equipped with headsets through which the visual impaired moviegoers can find out what is shown on the screen without disturbing the rest of the audience. This is done during natural pauses in the dialogue, offering info on key visual elements.

For example, this is a descriptive line from "The Lion King." "Smiling, Rafiki bends over Simba, the baby lion and shakes his walking stick which has two melons tied to it. Simba swats his paws at the melons playfully." It may not be the same, but the unprivileged ones love it.

The support system for the deaf or hard-of-hearing audiences projects reverse captions on LED text display mounted in the rear area of the theater. Then, the spectators use transparent acrylic panels attached to their seats to reflect back this text and the result is superimposing this on the movie screen. Just like your own personalized subtitle. Developed by WGBH, Boston's public radio, Mo Pix system was first put into practice in 1997.

Now, many movies and most of the new ones are Mo Pix-enabled, so they can be seen anywhere due to this technology. The next step is fitting the State Theater in Traverse City with this system, but the initiators of the project are still raising funds, since they have only collected ten percent of the total value by now.


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