[gui-talk] Fwd: more TV providers provide talking menus for blind subscribers

[Hoffman, Allen]

I was holding off on writing something in depth and won't now, but just want to share my fun experiences of late with accessible TV.  First, I have to say the price of cable is getting to be ridiculous, we odn't all live for TV access, or at least I don't, and we don't all have access to all cable providers so we are all constrained differently.

I have Verizon FIOS which I now understand, like in last few weeks has licensed a set-top-box accessibility solution.  I don't know how good it is or isn't at this point, but frankly I'm not interested in continuing to pay $12/mo for a box just to do stuff I can do on my AppleTV in a very accessible way now.  I have explored using SlingTV on my AppleTV, and it may have problems.  Support is unreliable to say the least regarding accessibility concerns, but is "mostly" working now.  I tried DirecTVNow on my AppleTV as again I am attempting to be a cord cutter but found it had accessibility issues and support wsa only available via online chat!  Ugh.

So, Commcast does has a solution, COX may or may not have licensed that, and FIOS may have also licensed it.  Cost is high but accessibility on set-top is expanding. 

I Understand FireTV stick has some accessibility in it now but haven't had a chance to go turn it on.

Some may want to use client apps on their phones and many of these are actually pretty accessible and can be streamed to your TV/entertainment system via Apple or chromeCast.

One of the main headaches is getting access to live on-air TV especially at low or no cost if your antenna doesn't work in your location.  CBS and ABC seem to be particularly averse to allowing streaming even via some of the cord cutting providers like Sling or directvNow.

We are seeing progress but frankly I'd like to see seriously enforced regulation in this area as opposed to someone's comment about deregulation--without regulation you won't get consistent access to multimedia I would say and that's too bad.