> Audio description on the iPlayer
- 25 May 07, 01:05 PM
I wrote last week that the iPlayer, which is the media player for the BBC’s catch-up service, could be the best place on the internet or indeed anywhere, for receiving audio described material. Yesterday, I caught up with Andrew Strachan of the BBC’s Future Media and Technology Accessibility Team to discuss how this will happen.
Audio description is an additional narrative voice added to a programme to help explain what is happening for visually impaired people.
Finding and downloading audio described content will be a simple and straightforward process. It will be possible to search for only audio described material. Additionally, each programme will be clearly marked to show that an audio described version is available.
The Future Media and Technology Accessibility Team has finished an initial round of research into the best way to deliver accessible programmes with the iPlayer. Where available, there will be three types of file to download. These will be a standard version, one with British Sign Language and lastly, an audio described version. All three types will provide closed captioning.
Audio describing content does affect file size. “To give you an example, for a standard hour long programme, the file size is estimated as 383 MB, whereas the audio described version is estimated at 636 MB”, said Andrew.
The first phase of development is concentrating purely on delivery via the iPlayer. Even while this is being done the BBC is exploring innovative ways to enhance their audio description service in the future.
One possibility being considered is the delivery of audio described programmes as audio files. This would give users the choice of whether to download a programme with or without the video stream. If it is possible to do this, then it could make downloading files dramatically faster. This is not quite as simple as it sounds, however, and there are issues around digital rights management and license agreements to be overcome.
The BBC is also exploring whether it is possible to control the volume of the audio description independently to the programme’s volume.
When I asked Andrew to sum up what it is like working on the iPlayer, he told me that, "It was a real challenge to overcome technological barriers in making the iPlayer a truly accessible media player in order that I can enjoy
accessing it in future due to my profound hearing loss as well as making it easily accessible for everyone."
It is a programme’s production team that adds audio description, so the Future Media and Technology Accessibility Team cannot provide extra content. However, the BBC is heavily committed to providing programming with audio description and this will be made available on the iPlayer.
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