History
In early 2009, The American Council of the Blind (ACB) established the Audio Description Project (ADP) to boost levels of description activity and disseminate information on that work throughout the United States and worldwide.
With respect to description and media, broadcast systems in Canada and the United States are transmitted digitally and access to description on the former SAP secondary audio program channel is no longer available. Ideally, it is now possible to access multiple streams of audio, e.g., Spanish translation, audio description, audio description in Spanish, etc. In the United States, affiliates in the top 25 markets and the top five-rated cable network are required to provide 50 hours of video-described programming per quarter under the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010. Audio description for television is commonly called Descriptive Video Service (DVS).
Similarly, the limited number of DVDs available with description in North America (less than 100—as compared to over 500 in the U.K.United Kingdom) is further complicated by the lack of an audio menu on no more than a handful of those DVDs.
Broadcast audio description in the U.K. is delivered on a separate track, making it possible to adjust the AD volume separately from that of the audio from the television programme. However most people receive audio description via digital satellite television or cable television. Consumers can simply select audio description (or Narrative) via the menus on a set-top box. On satellite television and cable television the AD soundtrack is pre-mixed - the traditional way of experiencing description through TV.
In August 2009, BBC iPlayer became the first video on demand service to offer Audio Description.
In movie theaters, audio description can be heard using DVS Theatrical and similar systems (including DTS-CSS and Dolby Screentalk). Users listen to the description on a wireless headset.
Read more about this topic: Audio Description
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