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Archive: "Bringing Video Description Into the 21st Century"

Topics for this FREE forward-looking webinar included:

• A teachers' guide to using video description
• A comprehensive overview of resources for obtaining described materials
• A sneak peak at the description technologies of the future being developed at the VDRDC.

Presenters included Dr. Joshua Miele, Director of the VDRDC; Jim Stovall, President of Narrative TV Network; Jason Stark, Director of the Described and Captioned Media Program; Joel Snyder, Director of the Audio Description Project at the American Council of the Blind; and Emily Bell, Multimedia Manager at CaptionMax.

Webinar Resources

http://webinar.dcmp.org/resources

Archived Video

Questions and Answers

1. What was the name of the school program Joel was supporting with the description and educational materials?

   Hi there, it's Joel. I think you're referring to the Connecticut Children's Museum where I developed an audio described tour of their museum, but they also have a school there under the able of Sandy Monquest. Maryann, if you send me a note I'll be happy to get her contact information to you.

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2. Which movie theaters have described movies?

   It's a tough one. First, I would have you go to the website of the audio description project that is ACB.org/adp. There is a section there on description for movies, but moreover, I would also ask you to visit WGBH.org and check their accessibility links, I don't have the correct URL but by far the bulk of movies that are described, the description is produced by WGBH and they have a more comprehensive list of what movies are described for first-run movies in theaters and what theaters are equipped to show them.

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3. I just want to confirm that I had this correct; the RRTD will upload to the DVX, and then be channeled out to the B/VI person's smart phone. Will the real-time describer be able to use a smart phone, too?

   Great, thanks for that question. So, I realize that it's confusing and a slight alphabet soup of projects that I've thrown at you. The RRTD or Remote Real-Time Description is actually intended to be more of, as its name implies, it's a real-time option and is not necessarily intended to be uploaded and saved. It's something that could be used for live performances or other live real-time events like webinars. I think on the other hand, what you may be asking about is the DVX and ability to upload your own description that would then be synchronized with streamed or video on a DVD. And, yes, indeed, the plan is to be able to use a number of different platforms for that. We're starting out with a PC platform, but the idea is to be able to use smart phones or other mobile devices to be able to both view and upload descriptions. So for both the blind and visually impaired viewer for watching video and listening to description as well as for those who want to annotate and add descriptions to streamed media, mobile devices would definitely be an option.

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4. Once the new law is in effect for TV, how will we get shows to announce that they are described, TV guide, et cetera, needs to indicate that. Anything we can do as a group?

   Hi, Jackie. Great question, of course. And I think Jim, what he started to answer going to his website, he is planning on having a listening schedule of programs that have description but beyond that, I can tell you that the FCC is specifically, the committee I sit on is specifically working on how to connect with the two major distributors of television information so that every program that has description has a symbol, has a way of indicating it in print and orally. And also ways to indicate that a program has description when you have it on, that there's a tone, whatever that may happen before a program; accessing description in the digital age has been a work in progress. In my humble opinion, it should have been worked out before we went to the digital age. We're a couple years late, but the FCC got this committee going, hopefully we'll have a lot of information about this by July when the mandate goes in to place.

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5. This is the first of four webinars, what are the topics of the other three?

   Thanks very much. This is the first of four webinars, we're going to be doing one per semester for the remainder of the project period. And the future topics have not yet been formally announced but they will include a more detailed overview of the kinds of technologies that we're developing here at Smith-Kettlewell, that is going to be a little further in the future. Probably the next webinar will focus on actually using some of the audio description tools that you can download and use yourself to add your own descriptions to video materials. So if you're a teacher and you have a video that you want to show in your classroom but it is not available as a described source, we would like to provide some training in how to add that description yourself. There will be some other topics probably also related to the art and technique of description as well as some of the existing guidelines and tools such as the description key on how to go about crafting your own descriptions. A bunch of topics that will hopefully be of use for teachers in the classroom really providing access to the information that they're trying to teach with.

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6. How would DVX be managed and edited, especially if someone is too wordy?

   Again, a great question - The VDRDC has the words research and development in its name. These tools are-- we not only need to develop the technologies we need to develop the techniques that will be applied to using them. It's really great question, it's obviously a very important one. We're interested in a number of possible ways of optimizing or improving voluntarily contributed content. For example, if somebody has a description that goes too long and steps on dialogue, there are a couple of different approaches technologically that we can apply to that. One would be to simply use speech compression to speed up the description without changing the pitch. So that it could fit into the available space. Another technique would be simply to pause the video for the duration of the description and then resume playback automatically at the conclusion of the description. Another approach to this, of course, is user ratings. When someone hears a descriptive clip that they think is unhelpful or poorly crafted, they can actually rate that description on a clip by clip basis. They can say with a very-- with just a keystroke, this description was unhelpful. And we can use those user ratings to prioritize different types of description. If there's a particular description that has a very low rating, we might simply elect not to play it. And finally, just like a WIKI is a form where everybody can edit the content and it will sort of tend towards a group-- consensus view of what the right answer is, we're interested in using collaborative approaches to descriptions so that if you listen to a set of descriptive clips or a movie description and there's one clip that you don't like, you might just delete that clip and re-record it yourself and see if that might lead to an improved approach. All of these things that I've just mentioned have a lot of detail to them. So sort of glossing over them may sound like they are sort of pie in the sky ideas. But actually each of these ideas has a very solid approach to how it would be implemented. I think there are a number of other answers to that question as well. But basically we're looking for ways of making voluntarily contributed descriptive information usable by consumers. We realize that it will not be the quality of the professional description, but we think that it will still be useful.

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7. Could you please send out the contact information, and affiliations for the individuals that presented today, along with the webinar link that you will be sending us later this week? Thank you so much!

   Here is the contact information for the presenters (in the order they presented):

   Jim Stovall, Founder and President, Narrative Television Network Jim@jimstovall.com

   Joel Snyder, Director, Audio Description Project, American Council of the Blind jsnyder@acb.org

   Jason Stark, Director, Described and Captioned Media Program jstark@dcmp.org

   Emily Bell, Multimedia Manager, CaptionMax emily@captionmax.com

   Joshua Miele, Director, Video Description Research and Development Center jam@ski.org

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