Accessibility win, but in a confusing way...

[jackandahat]

So I'm watching the DVD of Bond, Die Another Day. One of the commentaries is Pierce Brosnan and Rosamund Pike. For the first 45 minutes you've just got Pierce on his own - and it's subtitled, so I'm in love.

Then Rosamund shows up. And I'm thinking, I can see her words, why can't I hear her? That's because apparently, he's being played in the left earphone and she's being played in the right. I'm sure this is supposed to be some trick about placement or something, but what it actually means for me is I can either hear her, or him, not both of them. (Deaf in the right ear)

Thankfully the subtitles mean I can still follow what they're both saying, which I'm very glad for, yay subtitles. But I've never met something that was quite this distinct about left/right.

ETA: Yep, they win, all the special features on Disc 2 (this is the UK version) are subtitled.

Comments

[exor674]

Totally randomly: if you use headphones, you can get a stereo -> mono adapter, you should be able to fit a standard headphone connector in that, and have both channels mixed on both sides.

[jackandahat]

Ooo! I have never heard of this, so thank you.

[pauraque]

That's news to me too. Are there such adapters that work with USB headsets?

[exor674]

Depending on what kind it is -- some USB headsets are USB to a little box, where you plug in a standard 1/8" connector -- those *should* work -- some are USB all the way into the headphones themselves, and those won't -- there is probably a way to do it in software though, just none easy that I know of off the top of my head.

[treeowl]

Probably not easy, no, but I bet you could hack on PulseAudio a bit to do that, if you use Linux.