COAT Press Release About Problems in Digital T.V. Transition
for Persons with Disabilities
Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Contacts:
Rosaline Crawford (NAD) 301-587-7730
Jenifer Simpson (AAPD) 202-457-0046
Adrianna Montague-Gray (AFB) 212-502-7675
Disability Coalition Reports Problems in Digital Television
Transition
Washington, D.C. The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible
Technology (COAT) made a formal report to the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) last week about some of the
problems that the transition to digital television poses for
people with disabilities. COAT responded to the FCC's solicitation
this summer for comments in a routine review of rules and policies
affecting the conversion to digital television. Analog television
transmission will end on February 17, 2009, when digital
transmission should be fully implemented.
"There are some real mess-ups with passing through closed captions
during this transition," says Rosaline Crawford of the National
Association of the Deaf (NAD), a leading coalition affiliate. "Our
members tell us about cable converter boxes not working and about
captions that 'slide off the TV screen,' are garbled, or are
somehow lost in transmission. In one case, the cable company had
to bring out three different converter boxes to the subscriber's
home before the closed caption function could be located and
captions could be displayed with the TV program."
Mark Richert at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB),
another leading coalition affiliate, points out: "No one is
telling us definitively that television programming that currently
has video description for blind people will also have the video
description passed through via the digital signal in February
2009." Video description is the provision of audio narration of
on-screen visual elements that are provided during natural pauses
in dialogue and can be turned on by the viewer who needs it.
Several video programmers, such as public television, voluntarily
provide video description for persons with vision disabilities.
Richert adds, "Millions of people with vision loss rely on this
form of accessibility to enjoy television content. Digital
technology offers multiple audio channels, with significantly
greater bandwidth, that can more easily accommodate video
description. What's so hard about broadcasters allocating some of
that new digital television audio bandwidth for the transmission
and delivery of video description?"
For people with disabilities, digital television transition
problems include:
* technical difficulties associated with pass through of closed
captioning;
* confusion over the scope of the FCC's captioning regulations;
* inability to locate and activate accessibility features through
remote controls or menus;
* barriers to resolving concerns with TV stations, cable
companies, and other video programming providers; and
* concerns about pass through of video description for people with
vision loss.
"The industry has to address these problems now," says Jenifer
Simpson at the American Association of People with Disabilities
(AAPD), another leading COAT affiliate. "No one wants TV screens
to go blank in February 2009. But that will be the effect on
consumers who rely on captioning or video description if these
concerns are not addressed now. We recommend a lot more
communication by and between distributors of television
programming, television equipment manufacturers and distributors,
and consumers with disabilities. We'd like to see television
equipment and remote controls have buttons to enable quick and
easy access to features like captioning and video description.
We'd also like to see much more focus placed on the needs of
consumers with sensory and other disabilities to ensure no one is
left behind when the country moves into the new digital television
environment."
The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology, or COAT,
is a new coalition of disability organizations, launched in March
2007, to advocate for legislative and regulatory safeguards that
will ensure full access by people with disabilities to evolving
high speed broadband, wireless and other Internet protocol (IP)
technologies. COAT consists of over 100 national, regional, and
community-based affiliates dedicated to making sure that as our
nation migrates from legacy public switched-based
telecommunications to more versatile and innovative IP-based and
other communication technologies, people with disabilities will
benefit like everyone else. More information about the disability
coalition is available at website
http://www.coataccess.org
SOURCE: Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology
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