[Electronics-talk] accessible TV shows and how do we fix ourTV'sto get the audio?

Christopher Chaltain chaltain at gmail.com
Sun Jun 17 17:01:08 UTC 2012


Feature creep isn't restricted to just the cable companies or other
monopolies in their field. I've worked in the software industry for the
last few decades, and software suffers from the same issue. A feature
matrix is a much easier way to market your product and differentiate
yourself from your competitors. Marketing stability, simplicity and a
smaller feature set is more difficult. Customers say they want simpler
and easier to use interfaces but when they're actually deciding which
product to buy they're still thinking of all of the features they may
want to use someday, and they're still doing side by side comparisons of
the features offered in the different products.

On 17/06/12 06:17, Gerald Levy wrote:
> 
> Interestingly, when I first started with Time-Warner Cable 30 years ago,
> their converter box was a lot simpler and the remote did, in fact, have
> a separate button to turn SAP on or off.  But over the years, as they
> have added more channels and features, the boxes have become more
> complicated, and so to keep the number of buttons on the remote to a
> reasonable level, many features that used to have their own dedicated
> remote button have been relegated to options on an onscreen menu.  So
> now, turning SAP on or off requires navigating through three or four
> layers of menus and at least five or six button presses.  Most
> consumers, according to surveys, would prefer fewer features and
> channels to choose from with so-called "a la carte" pricing, but the
> cable providers don't really care what their customers think because
> they are absolute monopolies in their markets and pretty much do
> anything they damn well please.
> 
> Gerald
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "cheez" <cheez at cox.net>
> To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances"
> <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 8:06 PM
> Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] accessible TV shows and how do we fix
> ourTV'sto get the audio?
> 
> 
>> Gerald, thanks for saving me time.  I was going to call my cable
>> provider and ask if the cable box remote control had a button to push
>> for SAP.
>>
>> I know this is a pipe dream, but one would think someone would come up
>> with some device that would give the blind the ability to access all
>> displays. And when something new hits the market, all one need do is
>> perform a simple upgrade.
>> They can send men into space, open the door for amnesty, but they
>> can't come up with a device similar to the above pipe dream.  Sheesh!
>> Vince
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Levy"
>> <bwaylimited at verizon.net>
>> To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances"
>> <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 2:16 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] accessible TV shows and how do we fix
>> ourTV's to get the audio?
>>
>>
>>>
>>> This whole situation is a real mess.  So the networks are going to
>>> increase the number of prime time hours dedicated to audio described
>>> programming. But if you are blind and you have cable TV or one of the
>>> satellite providers, this is of little consolation because there is
>>> no way to access the SAP channel unless you have sighted help to
>>> navigate the onscreen menus of the converter box to turn it on or
>>> off.  Presently, none of the cable or satellite providers has any
>>> plans to offer accessible converter boxes, so once again, we blind
>>> consumers are getting screwed over while the advocacy groups pat
>>> themselves on the backs for increasing the amount of available audio
>>> described programming. Imagine if the deaf had to rely strictly on
>>> audible clues to turn the closed caption decoder on or off.  You can
>>> bet their advocacy groups would scream bloody murder to the FCC.
>>>
>>> Gerald
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Gerald
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jenny Keller" <jlperdue3 at gmail.com>
>>> To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances"
>>> <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 4:55 PM
>>> Subject: [Electronics-talk] accessible TV shows and how do we fix our
>>> TV's to get the audio?
>>>
>>>
>>>> As the subject says.  Most of the TV's menus are not accessible, so
>>>> how will we get our TV's to the proper settings?
>>>>
>>>> If it is the SAP thing, you can't leave that on all the time,
>>>> because if it's not available in audio description, it turns in to
>>>> the spanish option.  besides, again, you can't access the menus by
>>>> sight it you don't have any.
>>>>
>>>> also, the article said that there would be symbols and sounds, well,
>>>> the symbols is a stupid idea cause if you are blind, and/or visually
>>>> impaired, how will you see the symbols?  that's kind of stupid in my
>>>> opinion, the symbols thing.
>>>>
>>>> Sounds like they have a lot of bugs to get out before July first,
>>>> and I've seen nothing on the networks saying anything about that,
>>>> and believe me, I'm a TV junky.
>>>>
>>>> JMO,
>>>>
>>>> Jenny
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>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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> 
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-- 
Christopher (CJ)
chaltain at Gmail




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