[blindkid] Christmas DVS movies

Fri Dec 7 04:40:04 UTC 2012

Darci, If you're a Star Wars fan, you can now get all six movies in a box set with DVS though the version I bought was BluRay-only and I haven't yet seen the same set in regular DVD format. My kids loved watching those and it was great sharing movies with my children going back in some cases to my days in grade school with the first film! I recently noticed that all the Indiana Jones movies are also available with DVS in a boxed set as well. I need to get those...

What I'm searching for is Harry Potters. I have heard the audio from these with DVS but never seen it released on DVD. In fact, I have heard audio for one particular Harry Potter movie in DVS with two release versions, one from the US, with an american accent for the DVS and another with a British accent on a UK release (same film), but the DVD's are nowhere to be found. I have looked for a long time.

Albert, was this on a DVD or broadcast that you tried? If on a newer player, look for an audio button that you press repeatedly to change audio tracks one to the next. It won't generally work on the previews (since most have just one audio option) but on the feature, it should rotate in a circle through every audio track. You may hear multiple English versions because it may have plain English stereo plus English 5.1 versions or various other variants. These may sound the same or different depending on your audio decoding and speaker setup. Likewise DVS sounds the same unless you are listening during the actual description portion. If you find the director's comment track, it too will sound the same when the director isn't speaking. Foreign language tracks are much more obvious when selected, obviously.

For whatever it may be worth, from what I have read, there are increasing requirements from the government which will force more and more content in the largest TV markets to be broadcast described. It seems the plan is to increase DVS over time to the point where it is as commonplace as closed captioning, and there is also apparently a future requirement to allow direct access to DVS content with a single button just like current sets also have already for closed captions.

I'm pretty certain some of that info is available through articles referenced in the article I wrote. It has been a few months so the details escape me at the moment.

The biggest problem I see (for the time being) is that the way DVR's record, they only record one set of audio channels ("set", as in a stereo pair of channels, or 5.1 encoding or such-- one audio program total) for a particular program. Closed Captioning data is encoded in a way that it can be recorded with all programs and accessed after the fact (or ignored).

Audio tracks take far more drive space than the text data for closed captions, so to date, the DVR's I'm aware of don't capture the non-selected tracks. Non-selected audio is simply lost when shows are recorded. What this means ultimately is that no matter the level of access to alternative audio (single button access or not) anything RECORDED would be recorded with no alternatives, and if you try to set to record all shows with DVS, for the time being, you may get DVS, plain English, Blank Audio, Spanish, or even alternative audio-- you get whatever is running on the Spanish track if present, or of not present, the unit will revert to the default, presumably plain English.

I have contacted TiVo about this concern and suggested they add the option of multiple languages being recorded with programs as an option on their DVR's, knowing it would take a bit more space. I expect it would take a great many requests to cause that to happen though. I have looked at Comcast DVR's a bit as well but not tried to contact them directly. This is based on DVR specifications and settings, so it may vary from model to model, just like direct audio access to DVD's by each player model or computer controlling a DVD drive.

It is a complicated mess, but as I see it, some DVS is better than none. It does seem that DVD's are coming along faster than network programing at this time, though there is a growing list of programming available depending on what is passed along by stations in your particular market. Remember that the audio has to make the entire path from the orig. show through the network, to the affiliate to your cable system and then be selected at the TV or DVR. If anyone eliminates the DVS channel along the way, it is gone for good. On the other hand, with a DVD if they encode the audio on your disk, it cannot vanish, but that doesn't mean it is on all versions of the DVD either.

One concern of mine with the DVD's is that many shows with DVS are released in multiple formats as well as versions. Some releases have DVS and some don't. Sometimes only the BluRay version has DVS, sometimes only the DVD has it. Sometimes it is both. Sometimes there are multiple releases with and without DVS in the exact same format. In some cases, rental DVD's don't have DVS while standard releases (intended for sale) do.

Labeling is inconsistent, and I have never seen any non-visual indication of DVS such as braille, but then again the only braille packaging I have ever seen on anything commercially sold has come from Brazil, if memory serves (where I hear it is fairly common). In fact the DVS indication can be in the smallest possible print text at the bottom of the back of the package. Sometimes there is a logo Sometimes there is not. Sometimes it is marked in a matrix style chart. When a logo is shown, the labels vary somewhat. Simply put, they have along way to go with DVS.

I should mention that as far as the kids shows, Dreamworks seems to be offering more Described Audio than anyone else. I keep track of kids DVS more than anything, but I do see a lot of shows for adults with DVS as well. I've been searching hard for DVD's with DVS for what must be a year or two now and so far I have about 50, or maybe actually about 60 good family titles now. Only recently have I started actually not buying some "family" titles I find because there are actually enough to have a selection from which to choose...

Richard

On Dec 6, 2012, at 10:25 PM, Albert J Rizzi wrote:

> Ariel,
> 
> I was just thinking about the other day when I was watching the help. My
> partner was home, so I was not thinking about selecting it independently.
> But we did find out you need sighted assistance. Thinking you are correct
> about looking into that one.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindkid [mailto:blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Arielle
> Silverman
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2012 7:29 PM
> To: Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Christmas DVS movies
> 
> Just curious-is it possible for a blind person to turn audio description on
> and off independently for DVD's or TV shows? If not something should be done
> about that. DVS is of limited value if a sighted parent or other sighted
> person must always be there to turn it on, and I assume  it has to be turned
> on each time a new DVD is started, right?
> Arielle
> 
> On 12/6/12, Darcirae Hooks <draehooks at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Thanks for posting. Our family rule is to watch with audio description 
>> first, then the second viewing we can turn it off.
>> 
>> Darci Hooks
>> BTW we found Star Wars ins DVS. Caiden loves it.
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On Dec 6, 2012, at 18:34, Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> I'm starting to wonder if I'm the only one on the list who is 
>>> interested in Audio Described movies, but just in case I'm not...
>>> 
>>> I picked up a copy of Disney's "A Christmas Carol" tonight (the Jim 
>>> Carey
>>> version) with Audio Description. I find that DVD's are easier to 
>>> switch to described audio than broadcast TV. The way to configure DVS 
>>> is pretty
>>> simple-- just a couple of menu clicks turns Audio Description on or off.
>>> Some DVD's even have a special "splash screen" that loads when you 
>>> first load them where you can switch on the main screen... This 
>>> particular movie was $13 at Target n DVD or $20 for BluRay.
>>> 
>>> I also posted a while back that TBS ran "A Christmas Story" for 24 
>>> Hours last Christmas with Audio Description running on the Spanish Audio
> Feed.
>>> As far as I know they didn't disclose their plans to do so, but my 
>>> guess is they'll run it the exact same way this year.
>>> 
>>> If you haven't tried sharing favorite movies and TV shows with a 
>>> blind child or friend using this feature, I can tell you that at 
>>> least my blind daughter loves them. She knows far better what's going 
>>> on than when someone sitting nearby tries to describe things "on the 
>>> fly", and she knows she isn't frustrating anyone by asking "what 
>>> happened" over and over.
>>> 
>>> Before we found DVS, Kendra felt left out of attempts at family movie 
>>> nights and going to the theatre was of no interest to her at all. Now 
>>> with DVS, movies at home and the theater are a regular part of our 
>>> family activities!
>>> 
>>> Happy Holidays!
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>> 
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