[blindlaw] Satelitte TV Tuner Boxes

[Ford, Tim (CDPH-OLS)]

If anyone is looking for another possible case, how about the complete
lack of accessibility of my Dish Network satellite video tuner/recorder?
I assume the same lack of access exists for all the satellite and cable
system video recorders used by all those companies.

The unit is essentially a computer, with a hard drive and an operating
system.  There are a series of menus, left and right arrow options, a
button to select, etc.  It strikes me that it would not be a hard task
to put speech output into that operating system, especially since it is
a set amount of options and commands.  Just for fun, I asked DISH
Network about a set of instructions so that a blind person could operate
their video recorder.  Needless to say, they had nothing.

Yes, I can change/select channels, but that is about it.  The rest of it
involves too many steps and series of choices, and the choices vary
depending upon the situation, so I doubt that much could be done even
with a long series of steps to take, with no way of confirming what you
have done.  

Sincerely,
Tim Ford