Introducing Greta & Starks, iOS apps to make the cinema accessible to the blind and deaf

By CEO Greta & St…, 9 June, 2016

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Greta & Starks are two iOS apps that enable people with sight or hearing loss to experience fully accessible cinema. Starks also includes foreign language subtitles for an international audience.

GRETA & STARKS are special apps, as they play the existing audio description (AD) or subtitles for hard-of-hearing individuals and people with hearing lost (SDH) at any time, place, or screening - in indoor and outdoor cinemas, at home, at school etc. – simply, using one’s own smart device. Greta whispers audio descriptions, and Starks plays subtitles.

The only precondition is that the distributors have engaged our company to make the films fully accessible. Up until now, we were able to offer access to more than 113 movies.

Greta: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/greta/id793892423?mt=8
Starks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/starks/id793927739?mt=8

More information: www.gretaandstark.com

Options

Comments

By Mike on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

Hi,
When I open the application it is all in German. I am wondering if I can change the language to English since I do not know German at all.

Thanks and I look forward to seeing how this app works. I live in the US and I hope it can still be used here as well.

Thanks,
Mike

By Rick Alfaro on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

The description on the app store is only in German. The app as well is coming up in German. Can we get an English version please? It sounds like a great app and I'm looking forward to being able to use it without having to learn German first. (smile)

By techluver on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

Hi i'm trying to get it to work and it's not syncing propperly. any suggestions?

By CEO Greta & St… on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

Hi guys, thank you for your interest. The English version of the app is just being review form app store. Please join us, if you live in NYC for the presentation. If you cannot make it. I´ll keep you updated here.
Thank you so much for your quick reply!! Best, Seneit

By CEO Greta & St… on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

In reply to by Rick Alfaro

Thank you Rick, you don´t have to learn German. It´s going to be in English. We don´t have much films at the beginning though.
I´ll keep you posted. Best,
Seneit

By Pavel Ondra on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

how it works? ok, i have downloaded description for warcraft. what next?

By Pavel Ondra on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

I was able to start audiodescription for jurassic world movie, ok. but description is also only in german language. So all descriptions are only in german?

By CEO Greta & St… on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

In reply to by Pavel Ondra

Dear all,

thank you once again for your feedback so far. The English Version in now available in app store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/greta/id793892423?mt=8

But we are just starting in the US, so there will be only one film available, which is BEGIN AGAIN from The Weinstein Company. We make AD available on behalft of the distributing company. So this is only a test case to learn from you the potential users, if you find this helpful at all. If so, we will convince all distributing companies soon;-9

I really recommend to come to the test screening to explore, discuss and impact easily accessible AD together, if you live in NYC.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1728149670759639/

We don´t want to make this FOR you rather WITH you. Important to know is, that it plays the AD only in combination with the film sound. It is designed to make the AD accessible only for the one, who wants to hear it. It works offline, in theaters, with DVD, VoD, TV etc.

Thank you and please let me know, what you think.
All the best,

Seneit

By Neo on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

This is a great idea! When is this being introduced in the UK? I've downloaded the app and it's in German.

By zatoichi on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

This is a great idea, I thought about this when I lost my sight. The idea of using the microphone to sync the audio is great. Let's get this translated, or could someone who speaks German maybe post a user guide.

By Roj on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

I tried the Greta app with the Netflix stream of Begin Again and it almost worked. After syncing several times, the audio description was always about 30 sec. ahead of the movie soundtrack. I wasn't sure if the best way to get closer would be to use the "pause/resume" buttons or to keep trying to resync. Also, some of the buttons were labeled in English while some were in (I'm guessing) German. Based on the mislabeled buttons locations I could still use the app fairly easily and I'm looking forward to having another option to access this great feature.

By CEO Greta & St… on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 12:57

Guys, your are so great. Thank you very much for your interest and your ideas so far. @Roj, the AD does not match with the film Begin Again at Netflix at the moment. We are currently fixing it and we are also speaking to some distributors /studios to make more films accessible. @zatoichi, where do you live? You should have the English version. Please close the app and open it again. I look forward to hear from you all and I really look forward to come up with some good news about a bunch of new accessible films soon. Thank you, Seneit

By kool_turk on Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - 12:57

In a perfect world, you would simply launch the app and it would listen to what's playing and start the audio description automaticly.

Think of it like you asking siri to identify a song.

I'm in Australia and the english version only appears to have one film, Begin again.

I'll keep the app for now and hopefully it'll have more content in the near future.

I like the concept, another company attempted to do this, but sadly, they only lasted a year, plus, you had to sync the tracks yourself.

By kool_turk on Sunday, May 27, 2018 - 12:57

I don't know about other countries, but here in australia it's only the one film audio described.

I thought I'd re-download it to see if there were any changes, talk about a huge disappointment.

No change since the last time I played with it, and that was about a year ago.