On the hunt again. This is what happens when you give me free time…or more accurately when I need to write a psych report and I am NOT in the mood. (Thank you for giving me a reason for my procrastination!)
What I am hunting is how to set your devices to play the audio descriptions on movies. This is actually amusing because I may watch about three movies a year. Netflix? Most people love it but I have never subscribed.
That means we are again in uncharted waters for me. Good luck and may God be with you. Here we go.
Chatty Chelby has a YouTube video on how to turn on descriptive audio on Netflix and using the internet browser, Xbox 360, Android phone and iPad. She completes the job for all devices in a less than five minutes presentation. Seems easy. An example of audio descriptions was included in Chelby’s video and it was detailed all the way down to the ‘arc of light’ going over Cinderella’s castle in the Disney intro. So far so good. Thanks Chelby!
Accessible.org has a page on “How do I turn on captions or descriptive audio in my media player?” For those of you who are not computer literate media players are on computers. The article contains directions for several different operating systems. This article should be helpful if you watch TV or movies on your computer.
I keep looking for articles that will talk about standard DVD players in the USA. Not doing so well for the States but kudos to the Aussies and the Kiwis. They have a couple of informative sites on this matter.
Here we are! The Audio Description Project, “an initiative of the American Council of the Blind” has a rather large and imposing but quite comprehensive website pretty much covering everything in the good ol’ U. S. of A. when it comes to getting audio description on your device. DVDs are second row, next to the last. If you are as tech savvy as I am, you might want to borrow someone’s 14 year old son for this project. He should have it done in about 5 seconds. Me? I would swear a lot.
Now on to the UK!
Well, as usual, the Brits are more interesting than us Yanks! June 26th they are having a workshop called “Audio Describing Burlesque”! Intriguing. The workshop “tackles the challenges of describing risque dance performances with discussion and practice”. Is that practice in risque dance????? Fish and chips optional. I guess you don’t want all that fried food if you are practicing risque dance.?
OK. All fun aside, the BBC is supposed to provide 10% of their programming with audio description. A little paltry right now but I know the people who gave us Dr. Who will improve on that! And they have a website, Help Receiving TV and Radio that has a special section on audio description.
So, here you are, another assignment. Go out on the street and grab the first, tech savvy looking teen you see. Bribe him to set this up for you and you should have some idea what is happening on TV by this evening. Including the risque dance, of course. Caio, caio!
Written May 29th, 2017
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