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Providing entertainment for blind and partially sighted viewers

Mon, 07/30/2012 - 17:16 -- admin
 

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/5/prweb240910.htm; May 31, 2005

OcuSource.com, the vision impairment industry portal, has announced that Narrative Television Networks (N.T.N.), founded by blind entrepreneur Jim Stovall, will supply pre- and post-event entertainment to the OcuSource Expo. The expo is a virtual conference providing information on services and products for consumers who are blind or have low vision, as well as the service providers within the industry. The expo was on from June 8 to 11; visit www.ocusource.com for details.

“We’re delighted to supply online entertainment to such a wonderful event,” stated Stovall, “We’re collaborating with the OcuSource team to provide a unique and entertaining online experience for the visitors to the Expo,” he affirmed.

Stovall’s career history could easily be a good topic for a movie: A national champion Olympic weightlifter, a successful investment broker, author, and entrepreneur. He is Co-Founder and President of the N.T.N., which makes movies and television accessible for the nation's 13 million blind and visually impaired people and their families.

One day while listening to a video of one of his favorite classic movies, Stovall became frustrated when he could not follow the story by only hearing the dialogue and sound effects. He realised that as a blind person there were many visual elements of the story that he missed, and he thought if he was frustrated by it, maybe other visually impaired individuals were as well. Jim and a colleague began to develop a plan to make programs accessible to visually impaired people by adding the voice of a narrator describing the visual elements of the story. The rest is history. N.T.N. has grown to include over 1,200 cable systems and broadcast stations, reaching over 35 million homes in the United States, and is shown in 11 foreign countries.

“Those of us who attend 'physical location' conferences know that there is usually some form of entertainment in the evenings after a busy day of conventioning is over,” described Dr. Lou Lipschultz, founder and CEO of the OcuSource.com portal for the blindness industry. “Thanks to Jim’s generosity, and some fancy footwork by our development team, now we’re able to even bring the entertainment directly to the homes of the attendees via the internet,” stated Lipschultz.

Lipschultz created the virtual conference so that those individuals involved with vision loss can share in the resources found at major industry conferences. The online “conference centre” has easy-to-navigate “presentation halls” and “exhibit halls” which allow the visitor to find his or her way to the topic of interest. Presentation topics include macular degeneration, living with vision loss, employment, education of visually impaired people, and presentations for vision care professionals. Exhibit halls are filled with “booths” staffed by manufacturers, vendors, agencies, organisations, and other entities eager to share information about their services and products. Visitors who are unable to attend the live portion of the conference can still experience all the benefits through archived streaming videos of the presentations available for 14 days after the close of the live portion of the event.

For details, contact:

Jim Stovall, President, Narrative Television Network
Website: www.narrativetv.com
Phone: (918) 627-1000,

Louis Lipschultz, OD, President and C.E.O.
OcuSource.com, L.L.C.
Website: www.ocusource.com
Phone: 888-299-665.

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