What is DTV4All? DTV4All is a project funded by the European
Commission, under the CIP
ICT Policy Support Programme, to
facilitate the provision of access services
on digital television across the European Union.
What are access services?
People who are hard of hearing or deaf need subtitles
or deaf signing to be provided with television programmes
if they are to fully appreciate its dialogue. People
who are partially sighted or blind need audio description
provided with a television programme if they are to fully
appreciate the context of what they hear. Such services
enable their users to access the storyline of a television
programme so are known as access services.
The ethos of DTV4All
There are two basic scenarios for the provision
of access services. In the first, those with
impairments are expected to buy a suitable integrated
digital television or a specialised digital television
set-top box that
can support the access services they want or have
it provided by the public health system. In the second,
society takes collective responsibility for inclusivity
and ensures that set-top-boxes targeted at the general
user can support core access services, especially given
that certain improvements made for vulnerable groups can
be beneficial to all users. DTV4All promotes inclusivity.
Why has DTV4All been funded?
The switch-off of analogue television in Europe
by 2012 represents both a challenge and an opportunity
for access services. It represents a challenge
for two very different reasons. Firstly, many
people who have had no problems accessing analogue
television will experience some difficulty in accessing
digital television. The extent of this issue is such
that approximately 15% of Europeans have difficulties
in accessing digital television for reasons such as:
Hearing impairments
Dyslexia
Visual impairments
The complexity
of setting up a digital receiver or set-top box
Remote controls
they find difficult to use
Electronic
Programme Guides (especially when there
are over one hundred chan¬nels to choose from)
Figure 1: Screenshot of a signing service provided
on a virtual channel (DR: Danish Radio)
Secondly, the analogue
switch-off will introduce widespread improvements
to the quality of existing digital television
programmes, collectively known as second generation digital
television, such as high definition television (HDTV).
As the amount of information that can be sent by a digital
television transmitter is limited this poses a challenge
to some existing access services. For example, the amount
of information in a high definition television programme is
significantly higher than the amount of information in the same
programme delivered in standard definition. This means that there
will be pressure to reduce the amount of transmitted information
devoted to access services due to the demand for programmes
to be delivered in high definition.
An example of a service likely to come under such
pressure is the provision of a virtual channel which
allows a signer to be shown more prominently than in
conventional portrayals of a signer on a screen illustrated
in Figure 1 above. Such a service is valued by its users
because the facial expressions of the signer can be
clearly seen and these are an important part of the communication.
However, showing the signer in this way requires more
information to be sent than conventional portrayals.
The opportunities to improve access to digital
television for those with physical, mental or
age-related impairments that arise due to the analogue
switch-off take two forms, opportunities to extend
the provision of existing mature access services to
European countries that do not currently provide them,
and opportunities to provide new kinds of access services
known as emerging access services. To ensure the challenge
is addressed and the opportunity exploited, DTV4All takes
action on two fronts:
Ensuring the
widespread adoption of mature access services for first generation
digital television
Identifying,
assessing and promoting emerging access
services for second generation digital television
The most valuable
contribution DTV4All can make is to identify
the enablers that will allow a core set of access
services to be offered in all EU member countries in the
near future.
Objectives of DTV4All
Offer and evaluate
mature subtitling, audio description, audio subtitling and
signing services in a minimum of four territories
within the European Union for at least 12 months.
Identify improvements
to existing access services and ways of addressing the key
technical, organisational and legal obstacles to the sustainable
take-up of these services in the timeframe
2008-2010 throughout Europe.
Identify and
prioritise key emerging access services, and the devices and
platforms needed to support them for the period 2010-2012 in terms
of technological feasibility, perceived value to their intended
users and business model viability.
Make recommendations
regarding mature and emerging access
services to bodies representing stakeholders
in the access service value chain on the basis of which
these bodies can take appropriate action in relevant standardisation
bodies.
