What to do about live description

Discussion about how the committee deal with audio description for live video

Larry wrote (on Nov 6, 2006):

<larry> Live description has been rarely used - in any environment except perhaps live theater. But descriptions are essential nonetheless for so many applicable Federal situations such as a webcast with PowerPoint sides. So if we don't ask for/require some sort of equivalent access that might not be as onerous, we might actually see some compliance with the reg. As it stands, I've heard of and seen virtually no video description (my preferred term, unless you want to use the more elegant "narrative description") under 508 regs - live or pre-produced.

[beware, heresy follows]: So how about we open up a discussion about the possible use of "longdesc"-like descriptions (embedded, lengthy alt-text tags, in essence), that are somehow linked to visual presentations and that will serve a useful purpose in making graphics, charts and pictures accessible to blind and visually impaired people without requiring an expert describer, trained voice-over artist, and professional mix session.

This, like textual descriptions of graphics from a presentation available before, after or during a presentation would go far toward achieving the spirit of the law and the new letter if we write it that way. It would be like a presenter who is trained to read all of his on-screen graphics instead of saying, "as you see on this slide, revenue collections have changed dramatically."

This might not work for all such live media, but it may be better than what we are getting today. </larry>

<geoff>True, synchroinized audio descriptions are more difficult to produce than captions, but if we don't require AD then it will never be used. In fact, requiring AD might stimulate further development of tools that will make it easier to produce. (Federal grant, anyone?)

Larry's proposal isn't out of the question, but it raises other problems. Asynchronous descriptions are solution only in specific situations, such as the use of static images, charts, graphs, etc. Assuming the author makes it easy to locate the descriptions both before, after and *during* the presentation, they may do the trick for some users. It will require some careful thought and wording to make sure authors understand this.

Speaking of heresy, I'd like to propose that we not worry about the production costs and hassles of creating audio descriptions. Yes, having a studio and an engineer and loads of editing software is necessary for broadcast-level AD work, but the average training video, on-line demo or how-to-fill-out-a-1040 presentation can be handled by anyone with a $10 microphone, a copy of Audacity or Sound Forge and a quiet office. Or (standard disclaimers apply) a copy of MAGpie.

Live media, of course, is another story. Current technology for live AD is not exactly easy to implement, but creative minds can probably figure out a solution: a stream of narration playing in a separate player window is one approach. I'd even argue that supplying a toll-free number for users to call and listen to a describer narrate a live situation might do in a pinch. In any case I think we should still *require* description of live media if for no other reason than to spur development. </geoff>