Review: Is AppleTV Deaf-Friendly?

Question: Is AppleTV a Deaf-friendly device? I was skeptical for a long time and passed the first and second generation AppleTV. A friend of mine purchased the first generation AppleTV and after playing with it I couldn't see the benefits of it other than watching my photos being nicely displayed. I never gave up on it though, the idea of having some kind of Home Theater PC has always interested me but I never saw anything out there ready for my needs, namely CLOSED CAPTION!

Then one day iTunes finally announced subtitles support for iTunes and AppleTV. Then I read on Deafmac.org that you could record TV shows from EyeTV which will preserve the Closed Captioning lines and works on QuickTime, iPhone, and AppleTV. Movie studios also started to release movies with CC in the iTunes store. Okay, Apple got my attention. Although, there aren't very many titles with CC, it is a good sign that the industry is supporting this technology and trying to make it work.

The lack of movies being released with CC kept my money in my pocket for a while longer. Then I discovered Handbreak. Handbreak is a little free application that converts your DVD to a format playable on the AppleTV (.m4v) and you can turn the subtitles on so it will playback with subtitles. So I let go of my wallet and bought the AppleTV Take 2.

My first impression was how easy it was to set it up. I did have a problem finding a quick way to transfer my DVD Collection into the AppleTV. The process was easy enough but took forever since it takes about an hour to convert a DVD to .m4v format, then another hour or so transferring and syncing the movie to the AppleTV. Eventually I figured out how to do it much faster (wired instead of wireless). Anyway, because studios won't give me movies over the internet with CC I had to do it myself with the DVD's I own and purchased of course.

The end result: Once I got a lot of movies into my library I couldn't stop. My wife and I became addicted to feeding our new movie library. We now have 50 movies in there with 200 more to go. The quality seems better than DVD (impossible, I know but it's true). I purchased Stardust from the iTunes store so I could get a feel of how the subtitled feature worked and what it looked like. I was impressed although it was a different look and feel than what we are used to. There is a larger black box behind the text and the font is different. At first I didn't like it but I gave it a chance and eventually I found that the font was pretty easy to read and I didn't feel like the design was interfering with my movie. Oddly, when playing the movie in QuickTime on my laptop, the CC looks very normal.

I have a 53" rear projection HDTV made by APEX and in the 4 years that I have owned it, I have never experienced High Definition movies on it. So I decided to download the HD version of Indiana Jones 4 preview. The image quality was stunning and beautiful. I was shocked at how brilliant and how much details my TV displayed. I was very impressed, now if only HD content in iTunes were subtitled!!!

AppleTV can also display photos and play music. Who cares about the music, anyone? The photos were fun to upload and watch. I can also watch Deaf videos on Youtube... uh no comment here.

So is AppleTV Deaf-friendly? *Yes, Apple has prepared their technology for closed captioning and subtitles but the movies available for iTunes are not with the exception of a few, but if you're willing to learn the few tricks and work-around the CC issue and have a little patience then it's definitely worth it and impressive to visitors on movie-nights. If you are Deaf and have the AppleTV but have problems with getting movies with subtitles on it, drop me a line, I'll do the best I can to explain how my workflow works. If you're hearing and don't give a dirt about CC, go get it.

Lance

*Edited - I liked Chad's comment below.