TV access

Video on Demand (VOD) is a rapidly growing platform for consuming entertainment content.  Recent developments overseas are showing that action around accessibility to VOD is also growing.

In the USA, religious television is very popular with lots of churches having their own television shows and channels. Under American rules these programs are subject to captioning regulations.

BBC senior engineer Mike Armstrong works with caption viewers in a replica of an everyday lounge room to try and get the most realistic reactions to his research and development into better ways to caption BBC television.

A long-standing issue for caption watchers and producers is how fast should captions be? Some people have problems reading the captions if they display too quickly and others complain if captions are edited from the full speech so that there is enough time to read them.