You are likely familiar with the term “closed-captioning” for television and video.

But have you hear about “audio description,” or the acronym, DVI? 

It stands for “Descriptive Video Information.” (Note: Some call it “audio description,” others “video description.”  WGBH, the PBS station in Boston calls in it DVS, a term they copyrighted through their Media Access Group  http://tinyurl.com/kmtuuj, the entity that pioneered the process.

However it is called, the purpose of the service is to make television and video programming more accessible to the visually-impaired segment of the audience.

(Data from the National Health Interview Survey states that over 20 million US adults have some form of vision loss even with glasses or contact lenses.)

Here’s how audio description works in short: On a separate audio feed of the program, a visually-impaired viewer can receive a specially-produced audio track of the program that includes additional narration describing any significant on-screen action and/or information that the regular audio track alone would not convey.

There are a couple of different symbols in use to signify that a program has DVI.  Some of them copyrighted.  The TV listings sometimes use a “D” to indicate audio description.  The most common one says “AD” in a box with little air waves.  (see logo at top of article)

In broadcast, cable and satellite, the DVI information is accessible via the SAP (Secondary Audio Programming) channel. http://tinyurl.com/l3d2ty

That is sometimes misnamed Spanish Audio Programming because often it is used to carry Spanish narration to English programs. 

In other media, DVI can be presented on a separate audio track.

As you might expect, there are only a handful of producers of DVI services.  One is the National Captioning Institute http://www.ncicap.org/.  A long-time contact of mine, captioning & audio description expert Anthony DeMarco, is on their sales and marketing team.

In some ways, DVI seems like alchemy to me because the audio description track cannot be longer than the existing audio track.  I mean, aren’t there instances where the audio track is already tightly packed with information? 

I asked Anthony that question.  He answered, “There are several ways to handle this. If the audio track is indeed tightly packed with information, the description for that section may already be done for us. If there is nothing crucial for us to add to what the narrator/speakers are saying, then we don’t describe anything.”

Anthony continued, “If, however, something must be described, we either fit in one- or two-word descriptions in any available lull in audio or decide to “talk over” the least relevant audio–false starts such as “uh, um” or repeated audio, etc. If the video elements require more detailed descriptions, we have the option of timing our descriptions to be read either before or after the section.”

There is a clearinghouse out of Spartanburg, SC, the Described and Captioned Media Program,  http://tinyurl.com/n2q9fq  that keeps track of providers of closed-captioned and audio description providers, as well as those video houses that can encode the finished files back into the original SD and HD programs (like Video Labs http://www.videolabs.com/, the company I work for).

These good folks at DCMP sent me a a link on their site that gives you an excellent example of a video soundtrack before and after “audio description.” http://bit.ly/614uL

Anthony DeMarco of NCI also mentioned that they are other audiences besides the visually-impaired who can benefit from audio description.  “It can provide benefits for virtually any viewer.  Even a fully sighted person can use the description as a learning tool, helping him or her identify unusual or subject-specific objects such as woodworking tools or military items.  This usage applies equally to new English language speakers and children of any age, helping them build vocabulary.”

(And fyi, NCI also provides audio description services in Spanish for Spanish programming.)

And finally, Anthony muses that audio description “provides something most sighted viewers can relate to at one time or another . . . the added benefit of keeping one engaged in a given television program when he or she leaves the room but is still within earshot of the TV.”  

One other final note, you may not be aware that many cinemas these days offer special showings of movies with captions and/or audio description. http://tinyurl.com/dcnspx

As always, your comments are welcomed below:

You can reach Anthony DeMarco at ademarco@ncicap.org

And you can contact David Ryan at dryan@videolabs.net

If you found this article of interest, I invite you to check out these other blogs about captions and subtitles:

Our HD captioning services at Video Labs: http://tinyurl.com/6bpxje

The challenges of captions and subtitles for DVDs: http://tinyurl.com/5vgp9m

Captions for HDV tapes? http://tinyurl.com/cpwfan

Captioning & Subtitling options for Blu-ray discs: http://tinyurl.com/me7quf

And don’t forget to “follow me” on Twitter for exclusive time-sensitive media replication & multimedia discounted specials: www.Twitter.com/DRMediaSolution