Captioning and Audio Description for DVD and Multimedia Environment - Part Four

By Cheryl Heppner

Editor: This article is part of our coverage of the 2007 TDI convention and is brought to you by the folks at NVRC. You do not need permission to share this information, but please be sure to credit NVRC.

The presenters were John Mazza and Jay Wyant of CaptionMax. This is part four of four parts.

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Here's Part One

Here's Part Two

Here's Part Three

Here's Part Four

Another fun thing: Jay Wyant

Somebody can get both captions or subtitles as well as what is being described, so they are learning how somebody else would describe this. Does this have value in learning? We need data on this too.

We have had very positive feedback from board members and other people who had opportunity to look at what we are doing. [Demonstrates some of features described previously].

I don't know about you, but for me, captions that describe information should be seamless. You don't realize that description part is not part of the original DVD. We added on both the description and caption. But for you, the user, it is all one thing.

The more information we provide, the more time it takes for us to do it. We are trying to figure out what options are the key options.

We did find a top educational provider. They are now picking and selecting what programs they wanted to be the first for us to make accessible. I want to remind you they are selling this. The program is distributed by them. As a teacher or school you can buy it, and we prefer that you buy it as well, because our partners are allowing us to provide this for a free loan as part of the deal. But they need to make money doing this, so there is a delicate balance.

What More Can We Do? Jay Wyant

Now, what more can we do? Lots more. It is not just students that may have access issues. The teacher may also have low vision or hearing loss. So, lesson plans, all of the extras that will be created to go with the DVD, we can make those accessible as well. If you buy a DVD from this media group, that comes with a user guide that will be made accessible.

Another option we might do is more text elements, depending on what we think people need or want. We will rely on your feedback. We are open to more ideas. We also are media providers. If we create a DVD that is accessible, we will take it to the next level and screen it on the web. As you know, iPods are not accessible. They don't have captions, but that doesn't mean you can't subtitle.

We are looking at the next four years to see where our educational system is going and what schools will be using. We know they use DVD now. But year four, maybe they will be doing something else. We want to be ready to make that trend accessible.

We're looking at how this will be promoted so people know about it. DCMP has a network that they work with, plus we work with the national communication association. They are a major provider of PBS programming for educational purposes. We also work with a strong educational provider in colonial Williamsburg. We hope to upgrade our website soon, and I would appreciate your feedback on how to improve that.

Questions and Answers

Q: This is terrific, but I am not a teacher. I wonder if you see this as going out to general public at some point so that my DVD could be enhanced?

John Mazza: Due to the nature of the grant, we are required to stay within the parameters. The goal that CaptionMax has is that this would become standard practice in schools, period. Its application, once used, is really limitless. You can see this is going to apply to training videos for large companies. It has enormous potential. I don't think the genie will stay in the bottle that long. We have just kind of set the groundwork, we hope, and we want to see accessibility as a first option everywhere.

Jay Wyant: We wrote a grant proposal, and it was our idea to make the DCMP our partner. One reason is that we wanted to make sure it was widely available. DCMP is upgrading their website at www.dcmp.org. Any day now you will be able to download or have them send you a DVD, with free shipping or free download. To quality for that you must certify on an application that you are deaf or hard of hearing or low vision, or the parent or teacher.

Q: Can you explain more about DCMP?

Jay Wyant: It's Described and Captioned Media Program, formerly Caption Media Program. It is "owned" by NAD [National Association of the Deaf] which has a federal grant to operate it. They got their grant, we got our grant, and we partnered. It has been a wonderful relationship.

Q: I am really impressed with all of the capabilities of this. I am hearing and blind, and I work with all disabilities. I am really impressed that the video pauses as it finishes the description and seamless. It is amazing to me. I have never seen or heard anything like that before. You talked about the Community Advisory Board. How many are on your Board and where are they from? Are they consumers?

Jay Wyant: We have ten members on our board. They are from Minneapolis, Santa Rosa, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. One new member is a researcher at the University of Tennessee. We also have a well-known deaf researcher who retired and moved to Tucson. We have a new member who is blind from birth and 17 years old. We also have a children's board, more informal. We have been working with blind, deaf, hard of hearing organizations to recruit children across the country. We want more. If you are a teacher, in a classroom with deaf or hard of hearing or blind students, please talk to us because we would like to send you a demonstration or get feedback from your students.

John Mazza: Jay and I do a lot of outreach in informal work in the Minneapolis and San Francisco area. Particularly here, with an organization whose whole mission is to be able to identify products that could be developed and commercially viable for the low vision blind community.

Here's Part One

Here's Part Two

Here's Part Three

Here's Part Four