Evixar Inc. (address: 1^st floor, Matsui Building, 1-17-22 Shinkawa, Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President & CEO: Atsushi TAKIGAWA; securities code: 4257) announced that it had formed a business alliance with Broadmedia Corporation (address: 6^th floor, Aoyama Tower Place, 8-4-14 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Taro HASHIMOTO; securities code: 4347) in order to provide Evixar’s barrier-free motion picture screening service for persons with visual and auditory disabilities in movie theaters around the world. Shuichi Tsutsumi, one of Broadmedia’s executive officers, was previously appointed as a director of HELLO! MOVIE Inc., a subsidiary of Evixar that was created in December 2023 through a company split. In Japan, Evixar has made barrier-free film screening possible by releasing a free app, also named HELLO! MOVIE, through which users can enjoy movie captions and audio guides on their smartphones and smart glasses. Evixar-designed Caption Glasses have also been made available at many movie theaters in Japan and can be borrowed for free to enjoy the same functionality. In this alliance, Broadmedia’s role is to adapt these solutions to a workflow that conforms to the contents security standards of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) in the U.S. and promote their use in movie theaters worldwide.

Evixar has developed an acoustic communication technology that embeds specially encrypted sound data (acoustic watermarks) and unique features (fingerprints) of sounds (audio sources) that are stored on databases that can be automatically recognized by smartphones, smart glasses, robots, and other devices in order to control those devices in real time, and has obtained patents for these in Japan, the U.S., and China. Using this technology, acoustic watermarks are embedded into the advertisements and no-illegal-recording messages shown immediately before a movie starts, thus allowing the captions and audio guides for the movie to be controlled without making any modification to the movie itself. While in the U.S. and other countries, many movie theaters have been upgrading their projection systems to accommodate such services, most movie producers remain hesitant to add any extra process to their film-making. Because this screening method achieved through HELLO! MOVIE requires neither additional capital expenditure by movie theaters nor any change to the film content itself, Evixar’s solution offers a clear advantage.

Accordingly, Broadmedia will facilitate the adoption of HELLO! MOVIE among film studios in Hollywood, U.S.A. and other key players in the film industry across Europe and the Asia-Pacific, by leveraging the company’s know-how in adapting overseas-produced films and TV series to Japanese audiences (implementation of subtitles and voice-over translation), producing subtitles and audio guides for persons with auditory and visual impairments, respectively, and also by utilizing its global business network. In terms of film production volume, the top-10 movie-producing countries collectively make around 5,500 films each year. If Evixar’s audio guide and subtitle technology becomes the de facto global standard, and all those films are translated and delivered to audiences in 100 different languages, the company stands to generate revenues in the order of several hundred billion yen in use fees from the app. Indeed, Warner Bros. Japan and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan have already adopted Evixar’s HELLO! MOVIE and Caption Glasses for their films that are produced in Japan.

Broadmedia Corporation

HELLO! MOVIE Inc.

Social Contributions and Challenges of Evixar and HELLO! MOVIE - Realizing a "Sound Interface" that Makes People Happier

Evixar and HELLO MOVIE have realized "barrier-free screenings at movie theaters nationwide" for people with audiovisual disabilities through demonstration experiments with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and other organizations since around 2014. We will be making full-scale proposals to movie production studios in Hollywood, U.S.A., and overseas box-office companies in the future.

• Barrier-Free Screenings at Nationwide Movie Theaters" for people with audiovisual disabilities
  https://hellomovie.app/
  
  
• Whitepaper
  https://www.evixar.com/overview/en/whitepaper_en