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.
