Disability Coalition Reports Problems in Digital Television Transition

Editor: You may have heard of a new organization called the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT). They've only been around for a few months, but they're already making quite a splash in disability issues. Here's their press release regarding some of the captioning issues with digital television!

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The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) made a formal report to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week about some of the problems that the transition to digital television poses for people with disabilities. COAT responded to the FCC's solicitation this summer for comments in a routine review of rules and policies affecting the conversion to digital television. Analog television transmission will end on February 17, 2009, when digital transmission should be fully implemented.

"There are some real mess-ups with passing through closed captions during this transition," says Rosaline Crawford of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), a leading coalition affiliate. "Our members tell us about cable converter boxes not working and about captions that 'slide off the TV screen,' are garbled, or are somehow lost in transmission. In one case, the cable company had to bring out three different converter boxes to the subscriber's home before the closed caption function could be located and captions could be displayed with the TV program."

Mark Richert at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), another leading coalition affiliate, points out: "No one is telling us definitively that television programming that currently has video description for blind people will also have the video description passed through via the digital signal in February 2009." Video description is the provision of audio narration of on-screen visual elements that are provided during natural pauses in dialogue and can be turned on by the viewer who needs it. Several video programmers, such as public television, voluntarily provide video description for persons with vision disabilities.

Richert adds, "Millions of people with vision loss rely on this form of accessibility to enjoy television content. Digital technology offers multiple audio channels, with significantly greater bandwidth, that can more easily accommodate video description. What's so hard about broadcasters allocating some of that new digital television audio bandwidth for the transmission and delivery of video description?"

For people with disabilities, digital television transition problems include: -- technical difficulties associated with pass through of closed captioning; -- confusion over the scope of the FCC's captioning regulations; -- inability to locate and activate accessibility features through remote controls or menus; -- barriers to resolving concerns with TV stations, cable companies, and other video programming providers; and -- concerns about pass through of video description for people with vision loss.

"The industry has to address these problems now," says Jenifer Simpson at the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), another leading COAT affiliate. "No one wants TV screens to go blank in February 2009. But that will be the effect on consumers who rely on captioning or video description if these concerns are not addressed now. We recommend a lot more communication by and between distributors of television programming, television equipment manufacturers and distributors, and consumers with disabilities. We'd like to see television equipment and remote controls have buttons to enable quick and easy access to features like captioning and video description. We'd also like to see much more focus placed on the needs of consumers with sensory and other disabilities to ensure no one is left behind when the country moves into the new digital television environment."