[Electronics-talk] accessible TV shows and how do we fix ourTV's to get the audio?
Steve Jacobson
steve.jacobson at visi.com
Tue Jun 19 17:53:13 UTC 2012
Gerald,
You know, I cannot honestly say you are completely wrong in what you are saying here and what you have
said in other posts. Our accessibility in general is a real struggle these days and I see us making
progress in some areas and sliding back in others. My problem with what you are posting is that you are
not suggesting any alternative approach that will yield progress. I think it probably is all right for
us to try to be realistic
and see that no single law is going to make everything perfect, and it probably is reasonable for people
to realize that complaints won't often matter in the short run.
But what then do we do about it all? We can take your approach and follow the old line that "there's no
need to worry because nothin's gonna turn out right," and spend our time complaining to each other and
making sure that nobody thinks any efforts are worth while and gradually move back to our propper places
in the rocking chairs in the back rooms of our family homes. Giving us a dose of reality is fine as far
as I am concerned, but taking the approach that if something isn't perfect it isn't worth anything just
doesn't make sense to me.
Filing complaints and passing laws won't make things perfect, but that work does help. Cellphones are
not as accessible as they should be, but they are much more accessible than they were ten years ago even
without the I Phone. I simply don't believe that would happen without the pressure we have tried to
apply, as imperfect as it is. I simply do not believe that Apple's management got up one morning and
said "Let's invest millions of dollars in our products so blind people can use them." Certainly there
were probably some good intentions, I don't deny that, but laws have given us pretty good leverage in
terms of how accessible devices must be to be used by the education system and our government. Apple
could probably have been kept out of the education market without accessibility and they realized that.
This doesn't mean they don't deserve credit for what they are doing, rather it is only that laws and
complaints do have some effect.
Until we have effective artificial vision, I don't believe that we will ever achieve 100% accessibility.
However, if we work at it, we won't be as far behind as we will be if we give up and spend our time
telling each other how bad we have it and how hopeless any attempts to improve accessibility are.
So why are we worse off than the deaf or those in wheelchairs? I would agree with the poster who said
that we are left out more. There are several reasons. First, there tends to be fewer of us so we have
to make up for our small numbers by making noise. However, beyond that, accessibility for us is not
always easy to define. Generally, accessibility for a wheelchair can be defined through standards that
involve specific measurements. Much of the accessibility achieved by persons who are deaf involves
captioning which is pretty much converting the spoken word to text. Even interpreting is basically
converting what is spoken directly into another form. Our accessibility involves taking a more robust
sense, that of vision, and converting the information received to a less robust sense, hearing or touch.
This means there has to be built-in interpretation, or filtering of information that is not immediately
of value. This makes it harder to define accessibility in a legal sense or even in our own minds
sometimes. I have used software or visited websites that I'd have to say are accessible but were not
very easy for me to use. It makes it harder to define exactly what we need and does make it harder for
us to get something in place that guarantees accessibility. Some problems are more complex than they
appear on the surface. For example, some cable boxes don't display information as characters but rather
display information as screen shots that are really pictures. In some cases, cable systems have more
bandwidth for sending information than intelligence in their boxes so sending a picture of a program
schedule that the cable box just sends to the TV works for them but really complicates accessibility.
Of course, this isn't always the case, but it illustrates the point that problems are not always easy to
solve.
I think that in some cases you are mixing the sources of problems. For example, you talk about the fact
that we don't have any audio only receivers and that we lost them when TV went from analog to digital.
While that was true, I do not believe that audio-only receivers were ever mandated and were not always
available for analog TV signals. There is nothing about digital TV that precludes an audio only
receiver. Some manufacturer has to be convinced that it is worth their investment to do it. Some of
these digital to analog converters are most of the way there. I really don't think you can even say
that our problems with current TV interfaces have a lot to do with digital TV versus Analog TV. It has
more to do with the visual on-screen interfaces that televisions are using now and were often used even
on analog TV's. To oppose digital TV because it would mean the end of our audio receivers was a loosing
proposition from the start.
What this all means is that you are right, we're not going to get accessibility by passing a law or
filing a complaint. But I think it is pretty clear that we will get more by doing that than we'll get
by complaining to each other and belittling any attempts made to improve the situation. . It is going
to be an on-going struggle, and we'll win some and we'll loose some, but keeping up the pressure will
get us further than doing nothing at all anc being critical of those who try.
Best regards,
Steve Jacobson
On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 11:56:25 -0400, Gerald Levy wrote:
>Well, here's the big problem with filing complaints with the FCC. Aside the
>fact that they are ineffective, the process involves completing a slew of
>paperwork, which, of course requires sighted assistance. So if you don't
>happen to have sighted assistance on hand to help you fill out the
>appropriate forms, how are you gonna file a complaint? Remember when the
>conversion from analog TV to digital TV was first proposed? The blind
>advocacy groups filed complaints with the FCC contending that the change
>would be deleterious to blind consumers because they would no longer be able
>to receive the audio portion of the TV signla on simple, portable radios.
>And the new digital TV sets would not be accessible to blind users. Did the
>FCC listen? Of course not. They went ahead and rammed this change down our
>throats anyway three years ago. Today, we blind consumers are worse off
>with digital TV than we were with analog TV. At least in the analog days,
>TV sets were somewhat less complicated and easier to use. Today, digital TV
>is an accessibility nightmare for most blind consumers. So excuse me if I
>sound cynical about the FCC taking our complaints seriously.
>Gerald
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Christopher Chaltain" <chaltain at gmail.com>
>To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances"
><electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 10:50 AM
>Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] accessible TV shows and how do we fix
>ourTV's to get the audio?
>>I guess I don't follow the plight of other disabilities as much as some,
>> but my impression is that each disability has it's challenges, and I
>> don't fee like we're getting ignored more than any other disability.
>> Don't forget, we'll be able to take advantage of the Telecommunications
>> Act as much as any other disability if we work with our advocacy groups
>> or file our own complaints with our cable company and the FCC. I'd
>> suggest that if people really feel this strongly about the plight of the
>> blind that they join one of the advocacy groups and lend their voice to
>> others to help improve things.
>>
>> On 18/06/12 23:08, cheez wrote:
>>> Amen, Sista!
>>> Vince
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jenny Keller" <jlperdue3 at gmail.com>
>>> To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances"
>>> <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 7:23 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] accessible TV shows and how do we fix
>>> ourTV's to get the audio?
>>>
>>>
>>>> You know,
>>>>
>>>> I'm coming into this conversation a little late in the game, and maybe
>>>> it's not politically correct, but if it were the deaf, or someone in a
>>>> wheelchair and they were getting screwed as bad as we are, and left
>>>> out of as much stuff as we do, you know there would be a putty party
>>>> on the national news and every local news from here to hell and back
>>>> about it.
>>>>
>> >> Frankly, it really makes me furious about how much we get the shaft in
>>>> this country.
>>>>
>>>> I know, we have it better than most countries, but equal access should
>>>> be equal access to disabled services regardless of what disability you
>>>> have.
>>>>
>>>> It has always felt to me, that in the good old United States, where
>>>> all are supposed to be equal, blind people get the least amount of
>>>> help and accessibility.
>>>>
>>>> I don't mean to ruffle any feathers, but that's just my opinion.
>>>>
>>>> Jenny
>>>> On Jun 16, 2012, at 4:16 PM, Gerald Levy wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 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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>>
>>
>> --
>> Christopher (CJ)
>> chaltain at Gmail
>>
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