Media Access, Spring/Summer 1998
Media Access is made possible in part by a generous contribution from IBM.
The CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) is a research and development facility dedicated to making media accessible to disabled people in their homes, workplaces, schools, and communities.
NCAM and its sister organizations, The Caption Center and Descriptive Video Service® (DVS®), make up the Media Access department of the WGBH Educational Foundation.
A Milestone in Motion Picture Access
Los Angeles and Boston-area residents with hearing or vision loss are experiencing first-run films in a way never before possible--in movie theaters during regular presentations, with closed captions and descriptive narration.
In November 1997, General Cinema in Sherman Oaks, California, became the first conventional movie theater to install the Rear Window® Captioning System and DVS Theatrical(tm). These innovative technologies--developed by WGBH as part of the Motion Picture Access Project--enable exhibitors to make films accessible to deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, and visually impaired patrons, without the need for special prints or separate screenings.
The Rear Window Captioning System and DVS Theatrical debuted in November 1997 during the presentation of the Universal Pictures film The Jackal. This marked the first time that a movie was accessible to deaf and blind moviegoers during its regular presentation--at all showtimes and for the entire run of the film at this location. General Cinema Theatres, Universal Pictures, Digital Theater Systems, and WGBH collaborated to make the historic event possible.
"There is no substitute for experiencing the magic of Hollywood in a conventional theater," says Nikki Rocco, president of distribution for Universal Pictures. "We look forward to the day when that experience will be accessible to everyone."
More recently, moviegoers with hearing and vision loss were able to share in the excitement of the most celebrated film of the decade--the epic romance Titanic. The Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox feature is the winner of 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture, and the highest-grossing movie of all time, topping the box office for a record 15 weeks.
David MacKay, a jazz pianist who is blind, and his wife Melissa, were in the audience the night Titanic opened in Sherman Oaks. This was the first movie he had seen in a theater in more than a decade.
"This is a huge breakthrough for me," said MacKay. "I was able to experience the movie in its full depth. Now Melissa and I can go together, and she won't feel the burden of having to explain what's happening--she can have her own experience. It's marvelous!"
Cathy McLeod, a project manager for the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness, was equally enthusiastic about her experience with Rear Window. "We've always had to wait two or three months before we could see a captioned version of a movie," she explained. "Today, being up front with everybody else, I'm finally no different. It's a wonderful feeling."
Titanic's director, James Cameron, is excited about the inclusion that these technologies make possible. "Not only are people connecting with the film emotionally, but they're connecting with each other," he explains. "It's not the same as just sort of catching up with it later on a closed-captioned tape or having somebody tell you what it looked like. You should be there to experience it with other people."
In addition to the captioned and described presentations of Titanic in Sherman Oaks, General Cinema also equipped one of its theaters in Framingham, Massachusetts, with DVS Theatrical so that visually impaired moviegoers in the Boston area could enjoy the film as well.
Thirteen-year-old Lauren Brennan, who is blind, was swept away by the descriptions. "It seemed like I was really there!" she exclaimed.
Her mother Debbie added, "It's great to be able to come together. [The family] could talk about it later at home and Lauren was a part of it, which was really special."
How they work
The patented Rear Window Captioning System displays captions on a text display in the rear of a theater. Moviegoers who want captions use plastic panels attached to their seats to reflect the text so it appears superimposed on or beneath the movie screen. The panels are portable and adjustable, enabling the caption user to sit anywhere in the theater. The Rear Window System was co-developed by WGBH and Rufus Butler Seder of Boston, Massachusetts.
DVS Theatrical delivers descriptive narration via infrared or FM listening systems, enabling blind and visually impaired moviegoers to hear the descriptions on headsets from any seat in the theater. The descriptions provide narrated information about key visual elements such as actions, settings, and scene changes.
The Rear Window System and DVS Theatrical have been available in specialty theaters (e.g. large-format theaters, theme parks) for several years. Digital Theater Systems (DTS) of Westlake Village, California, enabled WGBH to bring the technology to conventional movie theaters.
DTS is the world leader in digital sound for feature films, providing multi-channel digital audio on CD-ROM. DTS adapted its technology to include the caption and description tracks on a separate CD-ROM, which plays alongside the other discs in the DTS player.
Next stop--Chicago
WGBH and General Cinema are teaming up to bring these technologies to more theaters. Chicago-area residents will be the next to benefit. An installation in General Cinema's Yorktown Theater--a new state-of-the-art megaplex in Lombard, Illinois--is already underway. The theater chain is also exploring the possibility of expansion into other cities later this year.
"We're pleased to be the first movie theater chain in the country to offer these technologies and excited by the wonderful reception from users," says General Cinema spokesperson Brian Callaghan. "We look forward to working with WGBH to make it possible for more people to enjoy films in our theaters across the country."
News on the latest locations and movie titles will be posted on NCAM's Web site at http://ncam.wgbh.org.
The Motion Picture Access Project was made possible by a grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, a division of the U.S. Department of Education.
Putting CD-ROMs to the Test
NCAM's CD-ROM Access Project recently conducted an analysis of the 1997 editions of four popular multimedia encyclopedias to determine their accessibility to blind and visually impaired users. The Project found only one title-- Encyclopaedia Britannica '97--accessible to users of screen reading software. The other encyclopedias ranged from somewhat usable to quite challenging for blind users. Visually impaired users with screen magnification can generally expect more success, but challenges still exist. Some products have complex screen layouts which are difficult to navigate and, in some cases, video clips cannot be magnified properly.
The project also analyzed widely used science and math software, including tools for doing mathematical problem solving, interactive simulations, and highly animated educational games. While the analysis did find that students requiring screen magnification may benefit from some multimedia software, Project Director Madeleine Rothberg reports, "A multitude of access barriers currently make these products ineffective educational tools for blind children." Products for younger children were particularly difficult to use since they often teach concepts using visual images.
Solutions to these problems will come from collaboration with software developers and other access organizations. NCAM is participating in a Texas State Board of Education initiative to develop accessible electronic textbooks for use in the Texas schools. Working with teachers of the visually impaired, staff of the Texas Educational Agency, and others, the committee will enable and encourage software developers to create more user-friendly educational software for all students.
The CD-ROM Access Project is funded by the National Science Foundation. For more information, including the results of the analysis, visit NCAM's Web site at http://ncam.wgbh.org.
60 Minutes... en español!
The most successful primetime program in television history is making history once again. In January, the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes began airing with Spanish closed captions provided by The Caption Center.
60 Minutes has been providing English closed captions since 1988. Now, 27 million Hispanic viewers who experience hearing loss or who are more comfortable following English-language programs via Spanish text can more fully appreciate 60 Minutes.
The Caption Center has assembled a highly trained team of bilingual caption writers to translate each broadcast. English and Spanish closed captions are broadcast simultaneously at the time of air.
60 Minutes creator and executive producer Don Hewitt has been exploring ways to reach America's Hispanic population for several years. "I'm thrilled to finally be able to say to a large portion of the country, 60 Minutes speaks your language," says Hewitt.
Closed captions are hidden in the television signal and can be "opened" through a television set's built-in decoder (included in most TVs built after 1993) or through a set-top device. Viewers can access captions via their remote control and on-screen menus. The English captions are available on CC1; the Spanish captions, on CC3. Viewers should check their television set's operating manual for specific directions on displaying the CC1 and CC3 captions.
Funding for English closed captioning of 60 Minutes is provided by CBS, Ocean Spray, Midas, and Ford. Spanish captioning is funded entirely by CBS.
Opportunities and Obstacles with DVD
Imagine watching a movie with crystal-clear images and sound. Now imagine that with a push of a button, you can select captions in one of eight languages or a sound track in one of five languages. Push another button and cut to interviews with actors, director's notes, or view the same scene from different camera angles. You're experiencing DVD.
DVD--which stands for Digital Video Disc--is the next generation of optical disc storage technology. It's essentially a bigger, faster CD that can hold computer data as well as audio and video. DVD aims to encompass home entertainment, computers, and business information with a single digital format, eventually replacing audio CD, videotape, laserdisc, and CD-ROMs. DVD has widespread support from all major electronics companies, computer hardware companies, and about half of the major movie and music studios.
DVD features include:
- 2 to 8 hours of high-quality digital video
- Up to 8 tracks of digital audio (for multiple languages, descriptive
narration, etc.), each with as many as 8 channels.
- Up to 32 subtitle/karaoke/captioning tracks.
Recently, LIVE Entertainment became the first studio to include video description on the DVD format with the release of Terminator 2 and Basic Instinct.
"In addition to being the right thing to do, DVS on DVD makes good business sense for the studios since it eliminates the need for dual inventories of described and non-described home videos," notes DVS director Ray Joyce.
The Caption Center has created a software utility that preserves captions being transferred from analog to digital media. Captioning can already be seen on several music videos on DVD by artists such as The Three Tenors, Madonna, and Fleetwood Mac, and several captioned movies on DVD are already in the works.
With DVD's near limitless capacity, the only obstacles to access are lack of awareness and poor planning.
Available From NCAM
Interested in captioning in the classroom? NCAM has developed the following products that can help:
- QuickCaption for Word Captioning software specifically designed
for the classroom, for use with Windows 3.x or Windows 95.
- Captioning Kids! On this videotape, meet teachers
and students who have developed innovative captioning activities for their
classrooms.
- Writing with Video: An Idea Book For Captioning in the Classroom
A 16-page booklet on how to use video as a catalyst for writing, with or
without captioning technology. Includes examples from real teachers and
students, across the curriculum.
For more information, call NCAM at 617/300-3400 (v/tty). Also check out main.wgbh.org/wgbh/learn/1097feature/.
QuickCaption for Word, Captioning Kids!, and Writing with Video were developed in part through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
From the Director
Are you ready for digital TV? Do you know the difference between interlaced and progressive scanning? What about the convergence of the Web and television? Will "crossover links" change your life?
Our electronic information and entertainment media are evolving rapidly and, as always, potential barriers for people with disabilities are arising just as quickly. I had the opportunity to address some of these questions at the January 16 meeting of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters. The committee was established by President Clinton to study and recommend what public interest responsibilities, if any, should accompany broadcasters' receipt of digital television licenses.
My role was to point out the very real possibility that the great leap forward promised by DTV could also be a big step backward for people who are deaf or blind.
What's the problem? For one thing, only the most preliminary testing has been done of DTV captioning, and while a standard for a rich and robust captioning system has been adopted, no one has actually seen it work. And yet, the first DTV broadcasts already have begun!
In addition, video description does not have a guaranteed home in either the new DTV receivers or the bandwidth being provided to DTV broadcasters.
NCAM will continue to address these issues in the coming year and work toward the implementation of captioning and description services in DTV that are just as rich and advanced and reliable as digital TV itself.
For more information on the Advisory Committee, visit www.ntia.doc.gov/pubintadvcom/.
This just in!
NCAM has just received a grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research to further the DTV access effort. Contact NCAM for details.
NCAM Expands Museum Work
Designers at Boston's Museum of Science have enlisted NCAM's help to ensure that the exhibit Messages, scheduled to open next year, is accessible for patrons with sensory disabilities.
Messages explores the evolution of communication, employing a variety of media that may present access barriers to deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind and visually impaired individuals.
NCAM has already advised the design team on producing effective audio labels to direct visually impaired patrons to specific kiosks. NCAM is now turning its attention to the kiosks themselves.
One kiosk features a single piece of video paired with five different audio tracks. Visitors are invited to explore whether the meaning of the video image changes depending on the audio. NCAM is testing whether the addition of video description enables a blind person to participate fully in this activity.
Future work includes addressing barriers encountered with video conferencing and assisting with efforts to incorporate "way-finding" techniques such as Talking Signs and maps.
This is not NCAM's first foray into the world of museum access. NCAM has been working with museums for years to make their large-format film presentations and other media exhibits accessible through closed captioning and descriptive narration. NCAM is also an active participant on the Clearinghouse for Accessible Museum Practices (CAMP), a joint project of the Association of Science Technology Centers (ASTC) and the Academy for Educational Development. This project is assessing the state of museum accessibility and will publish and disseminate a collection of best practices.
Thank You!
Major support for NCAM's projects and activities is provided by:
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The National Science Foundation
The U.S. Department of Education
Additional support is provided by:
The Boston Foundation
The Boston Globe Foundation
NEC Foundation of America
NCAM's Business Partners
For more information on NCAM's projects or activities, please call 617/300-3400 (voice/TTY) or write to us at: CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media, WGBH Educational Foundation, 125 Western Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02134. Send e-mail to us at NCAM@wgbh.org. NCAM info is also on the World Wide Web (http://ncam.wgbh.org).
The NCAM Business Partners
Accessibility on the Web: Is Your Site Open to Everyone?
One of NCAM's top priorities is to help make the 'Net more accessible to
people with vision and hearing disabilities.
NCAM's Web Access Project has been instrumental in the creation of Web
accessibility standards and has worked with countless companies, museums,
schools, and other institutions to open the enormous potential of the Web to
everyone. Many of our Business Partners have taken advantage of the free
consulting time that is a benefit of their NCAM membership to improve the
accessibility of their sites. Recently, the director of the MCI Foundation
noted, "Teaming with NCAM ensures that MCI is leading the way to level the
field in terms of accessibility worldwide." We're sure that NCAM's Web
accessibility expertise will be highly valuable to your company as well.
An Interview with NCAM's Web Access Project Manager
In the following discussion, Geoff Freed offers his views on web
accessibility.
Why should I make my Web site accessible?
Web access technologies benefit everyone, not just those who are deaf,
hard-of-hearing, blind or visually impaired. Many times, people don't feel like
they need to make their Web site available to a blind person because what they
have to offer on the site isn't intended for a blind user. Since the Web offers
information for everyone, nothing could be further from the truth. By using
universal design principles, your site will be easier to navigate and generally
more usable for everyone, including disabled people.
What are your specific suggestions for making my Web site more
accessible?
Here are the five most common obstacles disabled people face on the Web and
NCAM's recommended solutions.
1. Alt-text and D-links
People who use screen readers turn off their browser's image-loading feature,
or use text-only browsers. Thus, they do not have access to information
presented in graphic form.
People who use screen readers will often use the tab key to step through the
text links on a page. Although this allows users to identify links quickly,
they will not hear the surrounding text and will lose the context of the link.
Some screen readers will read a series of text links as a single link if
punctuation does not separate them.
Image maps require the ability to see and click on particular parts of a
picture. They are completely inaccessible to people using screen readers.
Screen readers read from left to right across the entire screen, combining
elements of columns, tables and frames into incoherent sentences.
Movies and audio clips are inaccessible to people who are blind, visually
impaired, deaf or hard-of-hearing.
Technology on the Web is changing literally by the day, often for the worse
when it comes to accessibility. However, some changes are for the better. For
example, the World Wide Web Consortium recently released the standards for HTML
4.0, which is the next generation of HTML. Part of the specification includes
features which will enhance accessibility for blind or deaf users. As Web site
authors become more familiar with the 4.0 specs, they can start doing things
that will benefit disabled users.
Additionally, the introduction of style sheets, which separate content from
HTML style markup, hold great promise for users with disabilities. While
authors are free today to create sites using style sheets, browser technology
is not yet able to accommodate them fully. Netscape Communicator, for example,
doesn't handle style sheets very well, and Internet Explorer 4.0+ handles many,
but not all, of its features. However, future versions of these and other
browsers will accommodate style sheets making it easier for authors to create
and maintain their pages in an accessible manner.
What is being done to help deaf and hard-of-hearing Web users interpret
the audio portions of multimedia on the Web?
It has been possible for several years to include captions in QuickTime movies.
There are six captioned (and described) QuickTime movies on NCAM's Web site:
http://ncam.wgbh.org. In addition to making these clips available to the public,
NCAM also provides complete instructions on how to caption your own QuickTime
movie clips, and the process is getting even easier. QuickTime 3.0 allows you
to add captions using either a Macintosh or a PC. Microsoft has developed the
Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange (SAMI) format, which allows
developers to add captions easily to multimedia titles and Web sites. Once SAMI
is available to the public, NCAM can help you take advantage of this new tool
as well.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been working on page authoring
guidelines through its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). How is NCAM
utilizing them to promote Web accessibility?
NCAM, through its association with leading online companies, advises the Web
designers who are creating some of the most popular sites on the Web. We are
continually sharing new information with our growing list of partners on
methods of improving their Web site or Intranet accessibility, and are now
using the new WAI guidelines for structure, navigation, and alternate formats.
Initially, we make a preliminary inspection of a company's site and write a
review with advice on how to make it more accessible. We also work closely with
webmasters and designers to help make the site as accessible as possible to all
users.
Where can I find Web accessibility guidelines?
Start at the W3C's WAI site: www.w3.org/WAI. Here you'll find up-to-date
information about what recommendations are being formulated for accessibility.
Then, go to the WAI's accessibility guideline page (www.w3.org/WAI/GL), where
you'll find a link to the latest version
of the Page Authoring Guidelines containing information and tips on how to
design better Web sites.
www.igs.net/~starling/acc/index.htm
AltaVista
Bringing the Internet to the world's fingertips is the ambitious goal of
Digital's AltaVista Search. At www.altavista.digital.com, AltaVista helps
people find the information they are looking for through sophisticated search
tools. It also has an instantaneous language translation feature that currently
translates over 250 documents per minute to break down the language barrier.
AltaVista has been committed to providing access to their powerful Search
Service for disabled users through their text-only version. Now that advanced
systems for the captioning of videos on the Web are available for deaf and
hard-of-hearing users, NCAM will be assisting AltaVista in applying the same
technology to enable indexing of video content on the Web. AltaVista also will
be providing information to Web authors on accessibility techniques.
chicago.tribune.com
Emphasizing efficiency, ease of use and depth of content, the Chicago
Tribune has revamped chicago.tribune.com, its award-winning home on the
World Wide Web. The Tribune's Internet edition was named Best Online
Newspaper for 1997. But the Web is too dynamic for even successful sites to
stand still for long, and the new Tribune site was built in response to
demand from consumers and advertisers. In addition to the new design, the
flexible, highly interactive site lets users choose to view a more
"traditional" version (one very much like the previous site). In response to
requests from vision-impaired users as well as those who prefer to surf with
graphics turned off, a text-only version is also produced simultaneously.
Motorola
Motorola is a leading provider of wireless communications, semiconductors, and
advanced electronic systems, components, and services. Major equipment
businesses include cellular telephone, two-way radio, paging and data
communications, personal communications, defense and space electronics, and
computers. Motorola is the premier worldwide supplier of cellular telephones
and is a prime contractor for the IRIDIUM satellite-based global personal
communications system. The company is also involved in high-speed, broadband
cable modem technology and in using Internet Protocol to combine video, voice,
and data on computer networks. Find out more about Motorola at www.mot.com.
The New York Times on the Web
The New York Times on the Web presents online versions of the latest editions
of the newspaper, original news content, regular news updates from Associated
Press, and the latest developments on technology in its new Circuits section.
Subscribers to The New York Times on the Web can now have a personalized
section of The Times delivered to them daily by e-mail. For users of
Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser, nytimes.com is a premier news and
information channel. The New York Times on the Web has worked closely with NCAM
to implement accessibility guidelines that have made its site more compatible
with screen readers used by blind and visually impaired Web surfers. Disabled
users of nytimes.com have responded very favorably to the company's site
accessibility upgrades.
Symantec
Best known for its Norton line of AntiVirus and other PC-assistance and
diagnostic applications, Symantec Corporation specializes in software that
automatically protects customers' data from corruption and loss. It also offers
communications tools such as WinFax, for sending, receiving and managing faxes,
and pcANYWHERE, which enables remote computing. Customers consist of
corporations, government and educational institutions, small businesses, and
individuals. Symantec has many applications for web developers, including
Symantec Café, which allows the building of Java programs. Symantec will
be working with NCAM to make its Web sites more accessible and to promote
universal design to its Web developer customer base.
ALLTEL is a customer-focused information technology company that
provides wireline and wireless communications and information services.
A leader in the worldwide internetworking market, Bay Networks, Inc.,
provides a complete line of products that meet the connectivity requirements of
corporate enterprises, service providers, and telecommunications carriers.
Bell Atlantic Internet Solutions offers connectivity and access to the
Internet as well as communications services such as e-mail, chat, network
integration, Web site design, hosting, security solutions, and consultation.
The Kelsey Group is a consulting firm with expertise in strategic
planning and marketing analysis for companies in the interactive directory and
Yellow Pages field.
Oracle Corporation is a leading supplier of software for enterprise
information management.
Scholastic is a leading publisher and distributor of children's books,
classroom and professional magazines, and other educational products.
A global Internet media company, Yahoo! provides a network of branded
Web programming that serves millions of users daily.
We are grateful to the following companies for renewing their NCAM Business
Partnerships for 1998.
Apple Computer
Bell Atlantic
Big Yellow
EMC
Disney Online
Houghton Mifflin
IBM
Lotus Development
Lucent Technologies
Manulife Financial
Mathworks
MCI
Pacific Bell
Panasonic
Siemens Wireless
Sun Microsystems
Turner Broadcasting System
The Weber Group
For further information about becoming an NCAM Business Partner, please
contact:
Jennifer Gormley, Business Relations Manager
CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
617 / 300-3400 voice and TTY
617 / 300-1035 fax
ncam@wgbh.org
Copyright © 1999 WGBH Educational FoundationPriority Access
2. Text links
3. Image maps
4. Columns, tables, and frames
5. Movies and audio clips
Do I need to continually update my Web site's accessibility features?
NCAM Welcomes the Following New Business Partners
NCAM | WGBH Educational Foundation