D2.3 Interim Report on Pilot Services - the School of Engineering ...

Gaps in knowledge of the efficacy of existing access services – far too little isknown about: user needs and preferences when it comes to the presentation ofDVB-Subtitles, if and how users with varying hearing capabilities actually usepre-recorded and live subtitles.One size does not fit all – Europe is a culturally diverse continent wheredifferent access solutions have emerged in response to diversity. A goodexample is inter-lingual communication, i.e., making TV programmes in aforeign language accessible to viewers. Parts of Europe, such as the Nordicregion and Benelux, have more than fifty years’ experience of providing interlingualsubtitles whereas most of the rest of Europe uses dubbing or lectoring.The role and perception of intra-lingual subtitles as an aid to those with ahearing impediment is clearly different in, say, Denmark where everyone is usedto subtitles for inter-lingual communication and Germany, where subtitles areunfamiliar and are almost exclusively associated with hearing impediments. TheDTV4All has to keep this diversity in mind and offer a strategic toolkit foraccess service implementation that is sensitive to cultural diversity and nationalcircumstances.Stakeholder perceptions of priorities are evolving – when work started onproposal for the DTV4All project the consortium members were familiar withthe priorities of the special interest groups representing those with physical andcognitive impairments but since mid-2008 changes have been noted in thesepriorities. An example of this is the interest in Spoken Subtitles as a complementto Audio Description. Feedback from the UK and Denmark indicates anincreased interest in scaling up services for those with visual impairments in thedirection of spoken subtitles for non-fiction and AD for TV fiction and drama.The economic downturn and the need for more efficient workflows – althoughproducing access services accounts for a relatively small part of televisionproduction budgets, in the current economic climate there is pressure fromwithin the organisations delivering digital television services to improve theefficiency of workflows and playout systems associated with access serviceprovision and to contain their costs at a time where particularly those dependenton advertising revenue are struggling to make ends meet.The planning and execution of the Pilot has had to be responsive to the above issues.In this report the DTVAll project team aim to explain the following:- what work was planned by:o The broadcaster partners in the projecto The universities contributing to the work of the project- what work has been done to date and the rationale for any changes or additionsto the plan for the pilot since 1 July 2008- what preliminary findings have been made- which preliminary conclusions are emergingo how these can be incorporated into later outputs of the DTV4All projectthat can have a strategic impact on the efficiency and effectiveness ofaccess service provision in the short termPage 5