Infrared Devices Bring Talkies to Hard-of-Hearing : Mann’s 8 Laguna Niguel : Screens to Use New System

Charles Beatty Jr. hasn’t been to the movies alone in 20 years, since he lost most of his hearing to a case of the mumps. With the help of two hearing aids and a decent seat near the middle of a cinema, he can understand the sound track pretty well.

“But if my wife or sons can’t go, I don’t go,” says Beatty, an audiologist and president of Audiometrics Inc. of Longview, Tex. “I miss enough so that if my wife weren’t there to ask, say, why the actors are laughing, it would take out much of my enjoyment.”

Audiometrics Inc. is one of a small number of firms putting the enjoyment into movie-going for the nearly 20 million hearing-impaired children and adults in the United States, through the use of infrared Audex systems that transmit sound to a headset and portable receiver worn around the viewer’s neck.

Infrared sound transmission was first used in theaters in the 1979 Broadway production of Peter Pan in Manhattan, but it did not hit the movies until the late 1980s.

Enjoy All the Nuances

Thanks to companies such as Beatty’s and cinemas such as the Mann Theatres chain, the hearing-impaired can now go to selected theaters and enjoy all the nuances of a feature film, from the crunch of feet over gravel to the staccato gunfire of a gang battle.

On June 23, Mann Theatres will open eight screens in Laguna Niguel, complete with an Audex system, bringing the chain’s number of enhanced screens to 33. This Christmas, the company opened a nineplex in San Diego that uses Audex.

In addition, the Cineplex Odeon chain has several theaters with infrared systems made by other companies. And United Artists has started a pilot program that uses a system created by Nady Systems Inc. of Oakland.

The expense can be great, but theaters are starting to shell out up to $10,000 per screen to make movies accessible. The reasons are simple: The cinema business is so competitive that a market of millions cannot be ignored. And state governments are starting to insist on accessibility for the handicapped, even when it comes to private businesses.

Mann installed Beatty’s Audex system, says Mann ad director Rich Given, because “we consider this to be the future of the business. It’s highly competitive, both from other theaters and home video.”

California, Florida Lead

Industry experts say California and Florida are the first two states to adopt building regulations demanding that assembly halls open to the general public be equipped with so-called “assistive listening devices.”

But it has not been an easy battle for the hearing-impaired. William Cutler, national president of Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, says 3 years of intensive lobbying was needed before California’s regulations were adopted in January. The regulations will go into effect on Jan. 1, 1990.

Businesses were hard to persuade “because they are paying the bill,” Cutler says. “Our biggest block during the 3 years it took to get California’s code change were the hotels. They have a good lobbyist, and it took a lot of persuasion to make them realize that an assistive listening system is peanuts compared to the total cost of developing a property.”

Movie theater owners were not easy sells, either.

“One of the problems we’re having is convincing theaters that if they put this in they’ll get an increase in customers,” says Beatty, who still cannot attend the theater alone in his home of Longview because “we have had a difficult time getting the movie chains in our areas interested.”

Owner Group’s Chief Skeptical

Robert W. Selig, president of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners of California, is slightly dubious about the power of listening devices to increase audience size.

“We’re hoping that the accommodation will bring in people who do have a hearing deficiency,” Selig says. “But there are no statistics developed yet.”

Even though public places have been equipped for wheelchair access for a considerable time, Selig says, “we do not have evidence that all of a sudden people in wheelchairs are rushing to theaters because there is accommodation.”

California’s regulations say that all public assembly rooms with public address systems, opening after Jan. 1 and seating 100 or more spectators must be equipped with some such listening system.

Existing buildings are exempt unless they are remodeled, says Jud Boies, accessibility and compliance director for the Office of the State Architect.

Boies says his office had hoped to make an even broader sweep through California’s assembly rooms but backed off temporarily “because it’s kind of a new idea and a new technology.”

Many Letters to Office

“We had more people write us who were hearing impaired and had them tell us they want this more than anything we’ve ever done,” Boies says.

“It was so amazing to see the excitement in these people. . . . It was a wonderful thing to see. It opens up a whole new world for people with hearing impairments. It changes their lives.”

While the California codes do not state what kind of system should be installed, they do suggest three sorts, including infrared systems such as Beatty’s.

The Audex system provides hearing assistance through a portable personal receiver available free at box offices. A transmitter is tied to the theater’s sound system. The transmitter amplifies the signal as it changes it into infrared light and beams it across the theater.

The infrared light is invisible to the human eye and stays within the theater walls, which keeps it from interfering with other presentations in multiplex theaters.

The beam is intercepted by a small portable receiver equipped with a lens. The lens converts the light to electrical energy so it can be amplified and delivered to the ears via headphones.

Audience Size Increased

Dennis Singleton, manager of the Mann Grove 9 Theatres in San Diego, is one movie man who does not have to be convinced that the Audex system has increased his audience size.

“I doubt very much that there’s ever a day that goes by that we don’t check them out,” Singleton says. “On certain days we’ll check out anywhere from five to 15 a day. When it’s busy we check out more of them.”

And his patrons are “very excited” about the chance to see a first-run movie when it comes out--instead of waiting 6 months to get a close-captioned video for the VCR.

“They don’t look funny wearing them,” Singleton says. “They’re like wearing a Walkman--a small set of headphones and a small receiver. And it sounds great.”