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Re: Audio description in gapless movie

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From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Jun 22, 2015 7:24PM

> Do I need to fail this under 1.2.5 (Audio description is provided for all pre-recorded video content in synchronized media.)?

If the narration describes all of the non-decorative visual information - no specific audio description is required.

If audio description is required but you can't fit it in -- then it's possible you could not meet SC 1.2.5. The way the extended audio description success criteria is listed as AAA means it can't be used to meet SC 1.2.5. This is frustrating to me but I haven't found a better answer.

Jonathan

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Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group
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-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lynn Holdsworth
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 9:42 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Audio description in gapless movie

Hi all,

I'm auditing an hour-long Flash movie comprising scores of very old movies and interviews. The scene changes every minute or so. Mostly the scene isn't important - it's often no more than a generic image to accompany some audio. There's a couple of wartime vignetts with exploding bombs and casualties and that type of thing. In those, the tone of the interview sets the scene, and audio description here, although definitely a nice-to-have, doesn't seem essential.

There are very few gaps in the audio track where descriptions could be slotted in.

Do I need to fail this under 1.2.5 (Audio description is provided for all pre-recorded video content in synchronized media.)?

I suppose it's technically a fail, since there's no description track.

The audio could be paused and the descriptions slotted in, but as a user I think I'd find this intensely annoying, and anyhow it would be a triple A rather than double A requirement.

I'm wondering if SMIL could be used to write the descriptions in text on a specific control on the movie stage. Perhaps the control could serve as a pause button so users could pause the track and read the description only if they chose to. Is this overkill? Is it too much of an ask?

Would really appreciate your thoughts on this.

Cheers, Lynn