Imagine if you can what it would be like to watch a film with your eyes closed. For those of us who are blind or low vision, this is something we live with every time we watch a film at home or at the theater. For some, movies aren't much fun due to the fact that we miss so much whenever there is no dialogue. Thankfully though, there is a way to make films and television fun for the blind. It's called
descriptive audio.
Descriptive audio is just what it sounds like. Every time there's no dialogue, the scene is described by a narrator. For many years the choices for described movies was very small, but thanks to the work of The WGBH Media Access Group and studios like Sony and Universal, the library is growing every day. In fact, earlier this year Sony made a commitment that every new DVD release they make will include a descriptive audio track.
Although I'm excited and encouraged that studios like Sony are finally on board when it comes to serving all their viewers, I have a problem with the fact that the descriptive audio track can only be turned on by selecting it in a menu. This wouldn't be a problem except the menus are completely visual. This means that the non-sighted person will still need sighted assistance to activate the audio track.
I know what you're saying. We're making progress and I should be happy. I am happy, but until menus on dvd's become accessible, having the track is only good for those who can find a way to turn it on. Maybe what they should do instead is have the default set to have the descriptive audio track activated, and you have to turn it off if you don't want it on when you're watching. Problem solved.
HOw much more likely are you to watch a film if it has a descriptive audio track?
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3 comments:
I noticed that every dvd remote I've encountered as well as software dvd players have an audio button that let you switch between audio tracks while the movie is playing. H in cyber link power dvd for example. So someone can just use that to cycle between audio tracks, english, french etc until the audio description track is heard. 99 percent of discs let you do this but there are a few that do not, mostly obscure releases that can't easily be found in stores.
Although this doesn't help with DVDs, there are a whole bunch of movies at Blind Mice Mart that I really enjoy, until the day they decide to make all DVDs accessible!
http://www.blindmicemart.com/assets/product_images/movies2.html
These are both great points. Thanks for the comments. I'm glad to know that a button on the remote can turn on this feature, and that there are other options for the blind when it comes to movies with descriptive audio.
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