“During my time with Stagetext up to November 2011 when I stepped down from the Board, Roger provided a caption unit that offered much improved quality over the earlier low-definition units, and the continuous improvements in the hardware and software have been instrumental in the creation of the high quality captioning experience we see today.”
Peter J Pullan MBE Stagetext Co-founder & Chair, 2000 – 2011
Stagetext is a charity that was founded in May 2000 by Peter Pullan, Merfyn Williams and Geoff Brown, each of whom had varying types of deafness and a determination to improve access to the performing arts for all deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people.
In 2006, Stagetext won funding to extend access to the theatre for deaf, deafened, hard of hearing. The funding came from the Treasury’s Invest to Save Round 8, announced in the Chancellor’s Budget Statement, and was matched with an award under the Arts Council England Grants for the Arts.
Groups of theatres joined together as local hubs to share equipment, training and marketing, and to collaborate in making their work accessible to audiences in a more cost-effective way than was previously possible.
Roger Graham, now Director of Digital 4, won the tender to supply the original 50 new bespoke Caption Units, and to develop the new Captioning software required to deliver the project. This was the beginning of a close working relationship between Stagetext and Digital 4, it included Digital 4 acting as their Technical Director for three years, and it still continues today.
Since we began working with Stagetext in 2009 Digital 4 has supplied over 150 Caption Units which are now in use through-out the UK and our Captioning Software can now also deliver Captions via Projector, on LCD Displays, to Tablets and Smart Caption Glasses.
In 2016 we introduced new full-colour Venue Caption Units and Venue software, and Digital 4 continues to offer exciting new developments to improve access provision in Theatres.
If you are interested in Captioning please contact us and we will be delighted to answer your questions and offer you advice
