Introduction
What are the AODA requirements regarding audio-visual materials?
While the standards for accessibility of
Material in
If the material is available publicly online, it falls under Section 14 of the IASR, and institutions are obliged to provide this material in an accessible format, regardless of whether or not there is an explicit request for it.
Captioning
Including captions in video and multimedia communications increases accessibility for all users, especially users with varying hearing disabilities. There are two main types of captioning options: “closed” captions allow viewers the ability to turn the captions on or off, while “open” captions remain fixed to the video and are visible at all times. There is a commonly held belief that closed captions are preferable because having open captions can overwhelm some viewers (and could have an especially negative impact on those with cognitive processing challenges).
Subtitles vs. captions
Subtitles typically only transcribe into text the verbal/spoken portions of a video, while captions convey the significant sounds from a video as well. With captions the
The Web Captioning Overview from Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM) explains more information about captions (open and closed), audio descriptions and transcripts, as well as offers a list of terms of technologies related.
The Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) Caption it Yourself website offers instructions and guidelines for
Online audio-visual files
Streaming media requires an online player that can turn captioning on or off. This requires a
- .SRT: Captions for YouTube, older JW FLV Player or for DVD subtitles longer than 32 characters per line
- .VTT: WebVTT format for HTML5 video
- .DFXP.XML: DFXP timed text for Flash with begin/end tags.
- .QT.XML: QuickTime TeXML subtitles. These are like QT.TXT but have a more modern
UTF-8 character set support.
Transcripts
A transcript is a
For more information on best practices for creating
Audio description
The Canadian
“…a narrated description of a program's main visual elements, such as settings, costumes, or body language. The description is added during pauses in dialogue, and enables people to form a mental picture of the program.”
This definition and other useful information can be found in the CRTC’s guide to TV access for people with visual impairments. This guide explains why audio description and described videos are important and offers links to related projects and services.
Additional resources
- National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM): Accessible Multimedia Guidelines
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): Multimedia Accessibility FAQ
What makes audio-visual materials accessible?
Physical media may have captioning included with it. This requires a video player be available that will display the captioning. Described video (known to some as descriptive audio) is provided on request.
- there are captions that can be displayed or activated easily by viewers (for publicly accessible online videos or audio files as per IASR, Section 14)
- when a video includes a Described Video option (not necessary for
audio-only files)
For compliance with Sections 15, 12 and 18 of the IASR, an audio track must be added to a video to convert it to a Described Video format when “notification of need is given.”
What kind of procurement decisions need to be made when purchasing audio-visual formats?
Currently libraries are only obliged to provide these upon request, but you should consider purchasing all media, as available, with existing captioning and descriptive audio. Having these formats readily available will enable libraries to meet accommodation requests in a more efficient and timely manner.
Physical media (for example, DVDs in your circulating collections) should have the capability to at least enable captioning to appear or have it embedded. It would also be beneficial if this material came with descriptive audio or at least a transcript.
Streaming media should come with a captioning file, descriptive audio or at minimum a transcript.
Descriptive audio is an interesting case as it can change depending on the educational purpose of the video. For example, for a film studies course, descriptive audio for the movieKing Kong could be very different than for a women’s studies course. The context of the use of the video will best determine how to create the descriptive audio.
Procurement of services to make audio-visual materials accessible
It might not always be possible for libraries to acquire captioned
Considerations
The following considerations should be kept in mind:
Captioning
- the service should create a caption file(s) for streaming
- jargon specific to a given field may not be correctly recorded by a service
- the turnaround time pertaining to captioning could be problematic with lecture capture or other uses which require the media to be available quickly
Descriptive audio
- Who creates this? Is it sent to a service that your library regularly uses?
- What are the costs and who is responsible for these costs?
Technologies
The following technologies can help with
Open source
Paid software
- TechSmith: Camtasia (note this may only produce open captions which are always displayed)
- Nuance: Dragon NaturallySpeaking
Procurement of accessible audio-visual materials
Negotiating with vendors to provide accessible formats for all
How can I caption videos legally? Considerations when securing legal permissions
Permission should be sought to provide closed captions for videos. For a sample draft of a permission form to secure the copyright or rights holder’s permission to provide closed captioning, refer to the Negotiating for accessible
Getting a video or an audio file captioned, or captioning it yourself often means duplicating the video (creating a second online or physical copy with captions.) As per Section 32 of the Canadian Copyright Act, you can convert almost anything into an accessible format except for “cinematographic works,” and those are defined as: “any work expressed by any process analogous to cinematography, whether or not accompanied by a soundtrack.”
Whereas most videos from larger production companies will include captions or at the very least subtitles, videos by smaller organizations may not have captions. In those cases, you can contact the copyright holder (usually the producing organization) and ask them about getting the file captioned. In some cases online/freely available videos will not include captions but the
For uncaptioned videos posted online on services such as YouTube or Vimeo, you generally are not legally permitted to extract and
Another option is to try using Overstream or Amara (linked above) to caption a video yourself (which doesn't technically reproduce the video) but you need to be certain to give viewers the appropriate link to the video that takes them through the “captioned overlay.”
For more information on other legal considerations, please refer to the Law and administration section of this toolkit.