Prime Video Unveils Accessibility Tool, Enabling Users to Hear Dialogue More Effectively
It doesn’t matter if you’re hard of hearing or not — we’ve all had issues hearing dialogue in our favorite movies and TV shows. The worst is when you turn the volume up to hear what’s being said and then a scene with loud background music comes on blasting out of your TV set like fireworks on the Fourth of July. On Tuesday, Prime Video announced a new feature that aims to address that problem.
The feature, called “Dialogue Boost,” allows viewers to increase the volume of a show or movie’s dialogue in comparison to its music and sound effects, giving them an enhanced viewing experience and eliminating the need to continuously have their finger on the volume control when loud music overrides a scene. It was originally created with the hearing impaired in mind but Prime Video realized it would be a beneficial feature to many users.
“At Prime Video, we are committed to building an inclusive, equitable, and enjoyable streaming experience for all our customers,” Prime Video’s VP of technology Raf Soltanovich said. “Our library of captioned and audio described content continues to grow, and by leveraging our technological capabilities to create industry-first innovations like Dialogue Boost, we are taking another step to create a more accessible streaming experience.”
Dialogue Boost employs AI technology to identify and isolate spoken dialogue from background music and sound effects, allowing for targeted enhancement that can be experienced across all platforms where Prime Video is available. By concentrating on dialogue alone, this approach avoids the need to use general amplification to increase audio.
The feature is available across all devices that support Prime Video. To access Dialogue Boost, viewers can select it from the audio and subtitle dropdown menu while watching a video. The audio choices are “English Dialogue Boost: Medium” and “English Dialogue Boost: High.”
Prime Video’s Dialogue Boost is currently only available on select Amazon Originals such as “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” but the streaming service has plans to add it to additional titles during the year. To check if it’s available, simply go to the audio dropdown box in the video.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Amazon Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.