Accessibility – IRT Lab

Dialog+ – End user tests

Michael Meier — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 10:11:02 +0000

The improvement of speech intelligibility for broadcasting content has been an important aspect of IRT’s work for many years. Dialog+ is the name of an additional service with enhanced speech intelligibility that promises to at least improve the current situation. To ensure that these developments are not only valid in a lab context, but also ...

Testing a VR subtitle production prototype

Peter tho Pesch — Mon, 11 May 2020 06:32:43 +0000

In our earlier post on accessibility services in 360° environments (here) we have described how these services can enhance user experiences and make 360° videos more accessible. In the EU-funded Immersive Accessibility project ImAc subtitles are extended with guiding cues to support easier speaker identification within the 360° space to enhance the user experience and ...

Audio Description via bone conduction headphones using HbbTV2

Maike Richter — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 06:23:37 +0000

People with visual impairments often need audio description when watching TV in order to understand what is happening visually. This can be problematic in certain group settings, where it is not possible to enable audio description e.g. public viewing events. In a group setting, as of now, everybody listens to the same broadcast sound together ...

Creative subtitles – design and mechanics

Melina Möhnle — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 10:13:59 +0000

More creative than current broadcast subtitles, but with measure and goal – that’s how subtitles should be. The IRT is researching its design and mechanics. So far, the display options of television subtitles have been very limited. This is due in particular to Teletext technology, which is still an essential part of the subtitle workflow. ...

Speech intelligibility: Dialog+ via HbbTV 2

Maike Richter — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 09:45:09 +0000

Over the past several years the number of complaints from TV viewers about hard to understand dialogue in various programs has been increasing. Many viewers are not always able to follow the dialogue of a TV program without effort even though they have adjusted the volume. Reasons for this can be age-related hearing impairments, modern ...

Accessible 360° video – ImAc solutions are ready for public testing

Ronald Mies — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 15:36:22 +0000

In the Immersive Accessibility (ImAc) project IRT investigates, together with partners from the media industry, how 360° media can be made accessible for all. During the project, a technical platform has been developed to enable accessible 360° media: enrich, distribute and playback 360° video content with fully customisable accessibility services. To this end, the project ...

Brain-Computer-Interfaces for controlling media-content in the web

Michaela Finger — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 10:23:00 +0000

Subtitles and audio descriptions are used to make the content of audio-visual media accessible to people with visual or hearing impairments. However, for people with severe motor impairment the obstacle usually lies ahead, in the user interfaces that should give access and control over the media content.With this project IRT wants to think outside the ...

“Inter-Device Synchronization” using HbbTV2

Klaus Merkel — Wed, 15 May 2019 09:24:28 +0000

The “inter-device synchronization” feature of the HbbTV2 standard allows the playback of IP AV streams on a mobile device in lip-sync with the broadcast TV image on the TV. One of the most important use cases for this is the provision of additional audio versions via mobiles and headphones, e.g. for use in a family ...

Subtitles in 360° media

Peter tho Pesch — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 09:21:35 +0000

In a previous post, we discussed the topic of subtitles in a 360° environment. Within the project Immersive Accessibility (ImAc) IRT investigates together with partners from the media industry how accessibility services can be applied to 360° or VR environments. At our demo app webpage (short link: www.irt.de/foxfinder), you can see a short 360° scene ...

Showreel-Video for Accessibility

Melina Möhnle — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 08:57:35 +0000

Accessibility for media is in steady change driven by new technical developments. The IRT works on different accessibility topics to adapt them to today’s needs and to new features. A showreel-video was created to enable insight into these projects