Comments on: DVDs for the Blind

By: Bat From Hell

Bat From Hell — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:37:22 +0000

Jason, this is brilliant! I want you to have my babies.

I am a blind person, and although I’m not that hot at reading text, I can enjoy screens full of video, especially now that we’ve got 30, 40 or 50 inch screens.

The technology is all there to give someone like me a superb movie experience. Great quality images, stereo surround-sound, audio description, what more could I want?

Well, actually, the problem is not the video display but using controls to manipulate it as a fully-sighted person can. Consider the YouTube video. At the bottom you get a series of white blobs on a white bnackground. If you’re me, you haven’t a clue what they’re supposed to do. The digital TV controls are all a great mystery to me, and there’s no way on most TVs to use the menus or buttons that give you all those state-of-the-art facilities that in theory are all there.

So more power to your elbow if you intend to do things the right way.

As expertise in making things accessible spreads, surely there won’t be so much of a delay in the production process. So I’m terminally optimistic, just as I am when I expect cars not to run me over.

Now I wonder whether I can post this without having to get through a visual-only CAPTCHA…..

Vince.

By: sln

sln — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:40:41 +0000

Wow, Jason. You never cease to amaze me with your drive to just “do the right things right”. Thank you!

By: Flack

Flack — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:27:55 +0000

I remember on my old DVD player, you could punch in a number at the main menu and it would jump to that track or chapter or whatever. I don’t know if this works on all DVDs and/or DVD players, but if it does, maybe it could be exploited somehow? Maybe you could have an audio introduction that says, “press 1 on your remote for the blind-friendly version” (you’ll probably have a better name for it than that). But then chapter 1 could set the audio/video combo you want.

I’ve never thought about it before. I guess there’s a line somewhere between being blind-friendly and annoying to sighted viewers. I’m sure you’ll find the proper balance.

By: Lee Seitz

Lee Seitz — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:24:09 +0000

Jason, are you planning on writing and/or recording the descriptive video yourself or hiring someone with experience in this kind of thing? Just curious.

By: Michael Kohne

Michael Kohne — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:23:18 +0000

I’ve noticed that some DVD’s have short video segments playing as their menu choices. Can’t these segments have audio? In other words, could each choice on the menu simply announce what it is while it’s selected? Since those little loops play repeatedly, it would be saying it over and over, so you can navigate by clicking through to the next item and listen for a second.

Coupled with a linear menu style (such that pressing a particular menu button repeatedly gets to all the items and then back to the first), you could have all the menus be blind accessable from the get-go, and without sacrificing anything for the sighted.

As a sighted person, I’d like a linear menu style, so that I don’t have to guess which button takes me to the item I want. On too many DVDs I have to spend a lot of time guessing which button goes which way.

And let me state again how much I like that you’re planning to put good effort into your sub-titles. I don’t need them, but I often leave them turned on, and I hate bad sub-titles.

By: Dave Ross

Dave Ross — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:17:02 +0000

We buy the region 2 Doctor Who discs, and they have audio menus like you described. It’s a nice touch. I think there’s descriptive audio as well, but I haven’t explored the discs much.

I say “go for it”.

And, yes, I realize this will have me waiting longer

By: Joey

Joey — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:10:06 +0000

Aresome post. I once knew a legally blind guy who had just enough sight with his face right IN the monitor to enjoy playing quake.

I hadn’t heard of descriptive video at all before. Neato.

This is probably an obvious and/or stupid suggestion, but it’s a DVD about text adventures. So its menus could be well, a mini text adventure (with audio too). Which would make the aestetics of presenting the DVS audio less of a problem since it wouldn’t need to be the very first thing that comes up but could just be a natural choice available in the game.

Also, I think the descriptions in the DVS will add a whole adventure game overlay to the documentary. “You’re in a living room. Sitting on the couch is an intense looking guy with little hair. You notice a brass lamp, strangely out of place in the corner.” So now I’m going to have to watch the documentary with that turned on, even though my sight is good.