Closed caption movies not an option on Google Play

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Thursday, 3 May 2012 11:08am

Google’s new multimedia content platform, Google Play, has failed to include closed caption facilities on its movie rental service, which was launched in Australia last week. While they are available on the platform, users are unable to easily search for closed captioned movies through its current interface, presenting accessibility barriers for people who are Deaf or hearing impaired.

Last week Google announced it would make its online movie rental service available in Australia through Google Play and YouTube. The rental service allows users to ‘rent’ a movie and store it on their account for up to 30 days. Once a movie is viewed, users are given 48 hours to finish watching it. Movies can also be streamed via YouTube, Google’s online video streaming community.

Closed captioned movies are available for purchase through Google Play and YouTube. However, the current Google Play interface does not allow users to filter their movie search to closed caption movies only. In addition, none of the movie trailers featured in Google Play’s Shop Movies page are captioned.

According to a post by Google staff on a Google web forum, a select number of captioned movies are available on both Google Play and YouTube. However, users aren’t able to look for captioning information on Google Play or search specifically for captioned movies. To access captioned movies, users need to use the advanced search option on YouTube before watching it on Google Play.

This follows the trend towards the online streaming of content where captioning standards are yet to be established. Currently no captioned content is available on Foxtel on Demand, a movie and television show online rental service, and only 14.5 % of movies available on the Australian iTunes store are captioned.

Google has recently attracted criticism for the lack of accessibility on its online photo sharing and editing platform Picasa. Late last month, Google announced Picasa Web Albums Uploader (a version of the Picasa software that is accessible by screen reader) would no longer be available for download. In place, Google recommended users download Picasa 3.9 for Mac, a version of the software that is not accessible by a screen reader.


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