The German RTL Television will offer a subtitles service for the hearing-impaired from December 19. From that day onwards, numerous prime time movies will be offered with a subtitle option.
The range of subtitled prime time movies in the third-party programming department will be gradually expanded in the months ahead. The broadcaster has said that by offering subtitles in its prime time broadcasting slots, the channel is expanding its corporate social responsibility efforts by offering hearing-impaired viewers an additional service.
The necessary technological conditions for this have been realised at Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland’s new broadcast centre in Cologne-Deutz. A complex operations plan was developed specifically for the service over the past few weeks and is being tested with the new broadcast infrastructure in Deutz until the launch.
The new service can be received on all digital SD distribution paths – i.e. via DVB-S, DVB-C or DVB-T, as long as the receiver used supports the “DVB Subtitle” standard. If the receiving device supports this worldwide standard, the subtitles can be easily accessed by pressing a button on the receiver’s remote control, eliminating the need for separately accessing them via digital Teletext.
