AD2020: where will audio description be in 5 years?

Transcript

17 May 2015

Roberta: Predicting the future is a risky business, especially if you're looking at media and digital services. Media Access Australia's CEO, Alex Varley, recently presented at the annual Print Disability Round Table in Adelaide, where he provided his thoughts on what audio description, AD, will look like in the year 2020. Welcome, Alex.

Alex: Hello, Roberta.

Roberta: So what are some of the key areas that will shape AD services in the next five years?

Alex: Well, I've got five, really. So the first one is, I think, automation or, you know, machines doing the work of humans potentially will impact. Then presentation standards so, you know, what's the quality of audio description going to be like. Then, of course, we've got commercial factors, looking at dollars and how that makes it all work. The idea of enhanced audio description, so that's actually doing more than just the brief amounts of audio description you currently get on services, and, of course, the impact of technology.

Roberta: Alex, you mentioned automation as a major factor. What are your thoughts on what will happen? Will we see machines creating audio description?

Alex: Of course, the big thing with automation is that people are worried that machines can just take over all humans' jobs and the good news is that, for anyone working in audio description, they are not going to be taken over by a machine because if you think of the process of audio description it's about trying to describe a picture or, in cases, actually moving pictures in video. Machines can't really discern what's the best things to pick up on and what's the most important information. Whereas humans are very good at that. Where I think machines will actually do a lot of the work is in the timing of the audio description, so where the gaps in the soundtrack are that audio description can go in, and also you'll probably see more and more what we call synthetic voices appearing for audio description, as we are seeing in screen readers and other devices used by blind people anyway.

Roberta: The inclusion of audio description on the new Netflix service is a welcome initiative. How important is that in shaping how video-on-demand services will develop?

Alex: Well, yes, for those listeners that haven't heard about Netflix, they launched a few weeks ago in Australia and the day after launch announced they were doing audio description worldwide and so that was an absolute major game changer for this because what they have proved is that you can actually introduce a service like audio description instantly around the world, because they're offering the same service everywhere, and clearly it's commercially viable for them, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Sure, there are some issues around the interface of Netflix at the moment where they haven't made that completely accessible but they will fix that. So the big game changer with Netflix is they basically laid it down to everyone and said, "We can do this and everybody else should be able to do it as well."

Roberta: That is very good news, indeed. You must be excited about that one.

Alex: Absolutely, yes.

Roberta: Now, commercial factors are big drivers of any change. Is that important for more audio description?

Alex: Well, yes, I mentioned that Netflix has obviously seen some commercial potential in audio description but, of course, the big thing that will help drive that along is firstly the population across the world is getting older and, as we all know, with age comes some vision loss. So the market for audio description is going to grow. Of course, the other thing is that what people don't think about is that the actual ability to describe a picture on some services being offered on the internet, through video-on-demand or something like that, really helps what they call search engine optimisation, so the ability of things like Google to actually find things more quickly, and that's the real commercial potential for audio description because the people that are trying to sell you things want you to be able to find bits of video and other things that are relevant to you and audio description actually provides that in a nice described way about what's in that thing. So that will really, really help the commercial process along, so that and the big, growing market.

Roberta: Of course, Alex, we need people to use this system, don't we?

Alex: Absolutely.

Roberta: How can they do that?

Alex: The Netflix service, there is information on their main website but we have also included that on the www.audiodescription.com.au website, which is completely accessible for people, and that will be continuously updated.

Roberta: That is very good news indeed. Well, thank you for all of that, Alex.

Alex: Thank you.

Roberta: I've been speaking with Media Access Australia's CEO, Alex Varley. For more information on access to media through technology and audio description you can call Media Access Australia on 02 9212 6242 or email info@mediaaccess.org.au. You can also visit their website www.mediaaccess.org.au or go to www.audiodescription.com.au for more information on audio description. Media Access Australia is a supporter of this program.

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