Making Media Accessible To Blind Users

Audio description, also called DVI (Descriptive Video Information) or video description, makes programming accessible for people with vision impairments. A voiceover describing the visuals, including scene locations, action, body language and on-screen titles, is placed in the program's Second Audio Program (SAP) channel, and timed not to interfere with existing audio and dialogue. Once the SAP is activated, you will hear the alternate audio if a particular television program includes this information and the station sends it to your TV. If a program includes a second language rather than audio description, you will need to turn off the SAP to hear the original audio.

There is no current FCC requirement to describe television shows; most of the shows currently described are educational programs that receive federal funding for the costs of creating audio description.

More info on Description

Turning on audio description can be a little trickier than turning on closed captions. The SAP channel is hidden in the audio of a described program, so you will need a tuner that can decode the SAP channel. This tuner can be part of your TV, VCR, or even your cable box. If your television set is not a stereo set, then your VCR or cable box must have a tuner with SAP decode capability, and the television feed must run through that box before going into the TV. Mono TVs will not be able to provide this feature on their own.