The experience of watching a movie or being in a museum has been challenging for visually impaired individuals for several years. But with good developments in technology, audio description made it possible to assist low vision individuals with a proper level of information for films, presentations, news, and more.
The Actual Process of Audio Description Services
An alternate soundtrack is used to depict the scenes and spaces of production such as a movie or a TV show. This depiction of visual elements is termed an audio description. This is helpful for the low vision individuals to access graphic entities in the form of bits and pieces of information. The process of describing videos started gradually. But now, many broadcast firms and cable channels are adopting this practice consistently as the days pass.
Both the audio and video description mean the same. Only the term used to denote the service changes, according to the region. In the United States of America, the process of describing video parts is called “audio description.” Whereas, in Canada, it is labeled “video description” respectively. Since this process is similar to delivering pictures through words, it is also called by the name “descriptive narration.”
Key Benefits of Using Video Description
The most evident advantage of using descriptive video information is giving precise accessibility to the visually impaired community. But it is also beneficial to the hearing-impaired individuals, when videos are closed captioned (text description on-screen). Understanding the contents in a much better way is possible when sounds are likely to be annoying or missing.
Children with autism and learning disabilities can make use of descriptive narration to connect the words they hear with imaginative reinforcement of the images they see in real life. Even the general population can reap benefits from audio description services in ways such as:
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Improving language comprehension
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Developing interpersonal communication
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Enhancing social and public skills
4 Different Forms of Descriptive Video Service
The method of descriptive video information has varied forms, depending upon the type of production, number of pauses, and the time of describing information. The 4 common types of video description are stated as follows:
Real-time audio description: The individuals who require a visual description is provided with the narration of events from a professional audio describer. As the name says, this description is specific to live events and occasions.
Standard audio description: This is the most common and traditional form of description, inserted within the natural gaps or pauses of a video. Since the standard audio description does not require an extension of video’s duration, this is highly effective for entertainment purposes.
Closed audio description: When a video has descriptions that can be manually enabled or disabled, it is termed as a closed description. Blu-Ray and DVD are few of its common examples.
Open audio description: By clicking the video, information starts to play automatically. This does not support manual adjustment of description and is pre-inserted into the video’s audio track.
Basic Techniques to Know About Descriptive Video Information
The concept of audio description services for a movie or streaming channel is not simple. There are a few basic requirements that must be fulfilled to furnish accurate, sharp, and concise description such as:
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Describing elements including appearance, body language, etc. at appropriate natural pauses.
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Restricting oneself from censoring any information.
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Having a separate script and a recorded track.
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Maintaining language consistency in the entire process.
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Matching the tone of description with the video’s context.
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Avoiding interpretation and personal opinions while describing.
These instructions are to be followed to ease the process of understanding contents from a media file. As a rule, get audio description services ideally from a trained professional.