Vision Australia’s audio description team have created an accessible program guide that covers the weekly schedule of audio described programs on ABC and SBS.
Following the launch of 14 hours of audio description on both ABC and SBS in June, Vision Australia national audio description coordinator, Michael Ward, recently observed clients were finding it difficult to navigate between the ABC and SBS audio description pages.
Since launching the ABC and SBS joint program guide though, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
“Looking at the ABC and SBS websites with what shows are coming up, I found the way it was set out was a little hard to go from the SBS to the ABC and find what you were looking for.
“[As a result] we compiled all the information into an accessible document where you can just go to the day or what’s on tomorrow and it’ll tell you in the running order what’s coming up,” Michael said.
If you would like to receive the guide every Monday, email Michael Ward at Michael.Ward@visionaustralia.org and he can then place you on the distribution list.
Michael has been grateful for the assistance Vision Australia’s Adaptive Technology helpdesk has been providing for clients to help set up audio description on their TVs.
“If you are in the position that you’re able to receive the signal you have to enable that signal through your TV remote or your on-screen menu, so we’ve found that’s the tricky part for some people,” Michael said.
“There’s a couple of things you have to do to set up audio description, and given there’s so many different types of TVs out there and there’s not one fix for every TV, the helpdesk has been helping a great deal for people to access it,” he said.
Michael has also developed a TV info guide covering all the different TVs and how to access audio description. You can find the article about it here which gives a walkthrough of the initial steps, as well as a link to the guide.
To find out more about audio description, or download the joint audio description broadcast guide, visit the audio description services page or download the guide here.
If you’re having difficulty setting up audio description on your TV you can contact the AT Helpdesk on 1300 84 74 66 and ask for the AT Helpdesk or athelp@visionaustralia.org