TV stick with audio description?

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

(Note this post is crossposted to 3 'groups.)

Does anyone know of a USB-type TV receiver stick (for terrestrial, i. e.
FreeView) - or, at a pinch, additional software - that decodes AD (audio
description)? This is for use in the UK, though I don't know if the same
AD is used in any other countries. (I know France uses compatible
FreeView, but I don't know if that extends to AD.)

 

[Brian Gaff]

I asked this a few weeks ago and was greeted by the sort ogf response you
normally get from the RNiB when they have no clue what you are on about. At
the moment it ssems to be the Panasonic TVs, Samart Talk or the TVonics PVR
all with speech.
I would say though that many do suggest to me that these pen interface
type tuners are pretty grotty in the signal side and thus not a lot of
good..
I'm sure some do have AD built in though I'd not know if the operating
software is accessible.

Brian

 

[the dog from that film you saw]

I asked this a few weeks ago and was greeted by the sort ogf response you
normally get from the RNiB when they have no clue what you are on about. At
the moment it ssems to be the Panasonic TVs, Samart Talk or the TVonics PVR
all with speech.
I would say though that many do suggest to me that these pen interface
type tuners are pretty grotty in the signal side and thus not a lot of
good..
I'm sure some do have AD built in though I'd not know if the operating
software is accessible.

Brian

surely it's down to the software rather than the tuner? - simply a case
of switching to a second audio stream.

 

[Graham Harrison]

surely it's down to the software rather than the tuner? - simply a case of
switching to a second audio stream.

If the underlying reception is bad then the AD may become broken in the same
way that the main signal can result in broken dialogue and "blocking" of the
picture.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Yes, I remember you asking.

Yes, but it seems a bit unfortunate if a blind person has to buy one of
the more expensive TVs, or a PVR, just to get AD, when USB TV sticks
cost from about 15 to 80 pounds; also, it's not as portable as a laptop
plus USB stick.

Well, from my limited experience, they're not too bad when used with an
external aerial - and I'm hoping they'll improve after digital
switchover, when the digital signal will be turned up, in most cases by
a factor of ten (10 dB).

From, again, my limited experience (just three models), it's pretty not
so: I suppose designers of TV-delivering software don't see the visually
impaired as their primary target customers! Though one of those three is
the one used by one of my blind friends, who does manage to use it.
[]
I think even for sighted me, getting one tuner's software to work with
another tuner would be no minor task: I wouldn't really know where to
begin. I guess the Linux world might have different views, but for we
Windows users ...

If the underlying reception is bad then the AD may become broken in the
same way that the main signal can result in broken dialogue and
"blocking" of the picture.

Indeed. I'm hoping this will improve with the rise in signal strength.

 

[Paul]

Well, from my limited experience, they're not too bad when used with an
external aerial - and I'm hoping they'll improve after digital
switchover, when the digital signal will be turned up, in most cases by
a factor of ten (10 dB).

If only this were true.

I've lost most of my stations. Only a couple come in regularly, and
one fads in and out. I probably have about 25% of what was available
when it was analog. And I live in the city.

Paul

 

[Char Jackson]

If only this were true.

I've lost most of my stations. Only a couple come in regularly, and
one fads in and out. I probably have about 25% of what was available
when it was analog. And I live in the city.

In my (American) city, we went from 6 analog Standard Def 4:3 channels
that no one in my house ever watched, to 33 digital channels, most of
which are either High Def 1080i or 720p 16:9 format. We dumped Comcast
and went 100% OTA. Signal strength hasn't been a problem, but I'm in
the suburbs and only about 30 miles from the transmitters. I use one
of those little 7" UHF loops for an antenna, tossed behind the
entertainment center.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Well, from my limited experience, they're not too bad when used with
an external aerial - and I'm hoping they'll improve after digital
switchover, when the digital signal will be turned up, in most cases
by a factor of ten (10 dB).

If only this were true.

I've lost most of my stations. Only a couple come in regularly, and
one fads in and out. I probably have about 25% of what was available
when it was analog. And I live in the city.

Paul
[/QUOTE]
I take it you're not in the UK?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

We would rightly be dismayed if the rest of the world saw Britain solely as a
nation of paedophiles and knife-wielding teenagers ruled by a gang of corrupt
politicians who dispatch young men and women to die in foreign battlefields
while old people are perishing from hypothermia in small flats that they can't
afford to heat. But from an African viewpoint, that is precisely the kind of
distortion that the western media ... not that we've told lies, but that, by
omission, we've obscured the truth. Jonathan Dimbleby, in Radio Times 29 May -
4 June 2010

 

[Paul]

I take it you're not in the UK?

No, in Canada.

For our transition, the government provided no financial support.
It cost the industry around 400-500 million to make the transition.
The claim at the time, was some of the TV stations would keep the
analog transmitter (use the same channel and everything), but one
of the stations making that claim, seems to have disappeared entirely.

In our country, this transition was handled in as brain-dead a manner
as possible.

I was concerned my sister, in a rural area, wouldn't have any service
at all, but it's possible her reception and mine, are about the same.

I have a two bay antenna I was using during the analog era.

I can solve the problem with one of these. I built this antenna last
year, but it needs a rotator to be practical. It sits stored in a box
right now. (It was actually built for someone else.) Gain and
directionality go hand in hand, and to get off-axis stations,
you need a rotator. My stations cluster in two groups, separated
by a 120 degree angle. The intended installation site for this
antenna, is at a site where all stations are clustered on the
same hilltop (no need to rotate).

http://clients.teksavvy.com/~nickm/gh_n3_uV/gh10n3_9V7_15u0.html

(When someone in the US built one, it looked like this.)

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7829/usaoutdoorversion.gif

(This is my attic version of the same antenna. 50ft of 1/4" copper tubing.
Freestanding, on its base. Probably over $100 in parts, including
the purchase of a 12" long 1/4" drill bit. Workmanship = not very good.
I had to cut some of the plastic pieces several times, due to
the need to drill the holes so precisely. Big fail on the drilling.
Drilling was done with a hand drill, with a home made "drill press"
built to hold the electric drill upright. To make the zig-zag
section, the copper tube is cut in sections, then soldered, to
make nice sharp corners of defined electrical length. Inside the
copper tubing, is a 14 gauge piece of solid copper wire, which
holds the tubing together while you're soldering it.)

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/2953/myatticversion.gif

That antenna has gain, outside the range the simulation claimed,
so I guess we'll chalk that up to bad workmanship. It still has
significant gain at channel 65, and it shouldn't.

The idea for me, was never to spend a fortune on this transition.
Our set top boxes were not subsidized by the government. No coupons.
So you pay full price for each one. And as a "techie", I'd hoped
the baloney about the old antenna being good enough, was true.
But it isn't.

Paul

 

[Brian Gaff]

That is true of the sat side, but for freeview you need to have a mix of
normal and the ad stream as I understand it. The very earliest freeview
tuners had the ability to switch but you lost the normal sound when you did
so.

Brian

 

[Brian Gaff]

Might I point out to those replying to the thread in the broadcast group
that this thread is mainly meant for blind users and is also cross posted to
a blind users newsgroup. We do have many issues with software where the
writers do not actually bother to include calls to any form of API to allow
access technology to talk to us about the state of menus buttons etc, which
makes it difficult to know up front if any software driven solution will
work for us.
Its always a suck it and see situation for us.

As I mentioned in my last message to these thread, I'm pretty certain that
the AD channel in freeview only carries AD not the program sound, so this
is a very important point when looking at the usability.
Brian

--
--
From the sofa of Brian Gaff -
(e-mail address removed)
Blind user, so no pictures please!

Yes, I remember you asking.

Yes, but it seems a bit unfortunate if a blind person has to buy one of
the more expensive TVs, or a PVR, just to get AD, when USB TV sticks cost
from about 15 to 80 pounds; also, it's not as portable as a laptop plus
USB stick.

Well, from my limited experience, they're not too bad when used with an
external aerial - and I'm hoping they'll improve after digital switchover,
when the digital signal will be turned up, in most cases by a factor of
ten (10 dB).

From, again, my limited experience (just three models), it's pretty not
so: I suppose designers of TV-delivering software don't see the visually
impaired as their primary target customers! Though one of those three is
the one used by one of my blind friends, who does manage to use it.
[]
I think even for sighted me, getting one tuner's software to work with
another tuner would be no minor task: I wouldn't really know where to
begin. I guess the Linux world might have different views, but for we
Windows users ...

If the underlying reception is bad then the AD may become broken in the
same way that the main signal can result in broken dialogue and "blocking"
of the picture.

Indeed. I'm hoping this will improve with the rise in signal strength.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"... all your hard work in the hands of twelve people too stupid to get
off jury
duty." CSI, 200x

 

[Brian Gaff]

In the us though things are somewhat different. But this is going of on a
bit of a tangent.

Brian

 

[Brian Gaff]

The problem here is interference from other freeview transmitters that have
also been turned up. I need to be very careful with aerials or I get repeat
statiions but others missing on both a netgem and goodmans box. the best
place for the aerial here is inside the roof aimed at the local transmitter,
If itts in the clear it picks up relays and when there is any kind of lift
on all kinds of other transmitters that ruins the quality of the wanted
ones. I mean I'm only a few miles from Crystal Palace, so what the heck goes
on is anyyones guess.
I have to run with an attenuator most of the time.
Brian

 

[Brian Gaff]

It often makes me laugh how countries cannot actually get this stuff right.
I wonder what happened to if it aint broke dont fix it?

An element of the kings new clothes about all this. Interestingly digital
sat conversion seems to have been actually successful, at least in Europe.

Brian

 

[Andy Burns]

I'm pretty certain that the AD channel in freeview only carries AD
not the program sound, so this is a very important point when looking
at the usability.

Yes, you've going to need some software that plays both the normal audio
stream and the audio description stream, maybe evel lets you set their
relative volume, but it is a software issue, nothing to do with the tuner.

A USB tuner is unlikely to even offer hardware filtering of the
different audio/video/subtitle/epg streams within the mux, unlike a PCI
card tuner.

 

[Mortimer]

In my (American) city, we went from 6 analog Standard Def 4:3 channels
that no one in my house ever watched, to 33 digital channels, most of
which are either High Def 1080i or 720p 16:9 format. We dumped Comcast
and went 100% OTA. Signal strength hasn't been a problem, but I'm in
the suburbs and only about 30 miles from the transmitters. I use one
of those little 7" UHF loops for an antenna, tossed behind the
entertainment center.

I've found that digital has been an improvement in general.

My old house is very close to a transmitter so that's had good analogue and
digital reception for ages: the loft aerial was fitted 10 years ago when the
house was new so it was designed for digital reception from the outset. The
aerial needs an amplifier because it's in the loft rather than on the roof -
a planning restriction.

My new house (my fiancée's) is further from a transmitter and has more
obstructions. Initially there were some multiplexes (groups of channels)
which we couldn't receive because they were outside the range of frequencies
that her old aerial was designed for, but a new wideband aerial (and a
splitter to give a feed to my TV-recording PC upstairs as well as the TV and
HDD recorder downstairs) has solved that. Occasionally I got very poor
reception on one multiplex (corrupted recordings on some days) but that
seems to have been due to a bad aerial lead between the wall socket and the
USB digital TV device: since I replaced that cable I've not had any more
problems.

The best improvement has been my parents' holiday cottage in the middle of
nowhere. Analogue reception was a bit noisy and suffered from ghosting -
more on some days that other days. Sites such as
http://www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tvd.exe? showed lots of obstructions between
the cottage and the transmitter. They got the aerial upgraded to a wideband
aerial and digital reception is good. I really thought that it would suffer
because of the weak ghosted reception. And that's before the transmitter is
upgraded to high power when analogue is switched off, so things can only get
better.

The aerials supplied with the TV sticks are useless. I tried one with my
laptop and my TV stick, having driven to within a mile or so of the
transmitter and there was no reception (I *did* get out of the car, so it
wasn't the car that was shielding the signal!). But a decent loft- or
chimney-mounted aerial which is designed for the full range of UHF
frequencies that your transmitter uses seems to be good.

This is only for SD. I've not tried an HD TV stick - and until the
transmitter is upgraded in September I won't be able to.

 

[Mortimer]

Yes, you've going to need some software that plays both the normal audio
stream and the audio description stream, maybe evel lets you set their
relative volume, but it is a software issue, nothing to do with the tuner.

A USB tuner is unlikely to even offer hardware filtering of the different
audio/video/subtitle/epg streams within the mux, unlike a PCI card tuner.

I use Windows Media Centre to record my TV programmes. And I noticed when I
examined recordings with VideoRedo that there are two audio streams on some
recordings, though one of them seems to be silent.

I've only found one WTV-format recording that seems to have AD and therefore
a non-silent second audio stream, although it's speeded up to about double
speed and at twice the pitch, which is odd.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

It often makes me laugh how countries cannot actually get this stuff right.
I wonder what happened to ?

"If it aint broke dont fix it" got fixed

 

[J G Miller]

It often makes me laugh how countries cannot actually get this stuff right.

France, Germany, Letzebuerg, Vlaanderen and others all managed to
achieve transition to terrestrial digital without any known problems
and none of them keep changing the frequencies of the multiplexes
or require viewers to rescan at least once a month because of EPG
changes.

But then as you keep reminding everybody, foreigners will insist on
doing thing differently

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

I'm pretty certain you're right.
In theory that may be true; in practice, most people, even sighted, buy
the software with the stick, and don't try other softwares - most
wouldn't know how to.Indeed. It's all going to be done in the software. The cheaper USB
tuners probably don't even have multiple tuners, so will only receive
one multiplex at a time, I expect (though will switch between them when
necessary, obviously).

I use Windows Media Centre to record my TV programmes. And I noticed
when I examined recordings with VideoRedo that there are two audio
streams on some recordings, though one of them seems to be silent.

Many video sources do have two (or even more) audio streams: originally
intended for alternative language soundtracks, or ambient sound without
commentary for sporting events (I wish!), and so on. That is separate
from whether stereo (or multichannel, such as 5.1) - each language may
come with that, or not. AD is yet another channel - on digital
terrestrial in UK, it is I'm pretty sure only mono, and carries _only_
the spoken AD. However, although there may be some, I've yet to see a
USB DTV tuner stick offered with (OK, if you insist, offered with
software that offers) AD.

I've only found one WTV-format recording that seems to have AD and
therefore a non-silent second audio stream, although it's speeded up to
about double speed and at twice the pitch, which is odd.

That does seem very odd. All I can think of is that perhaps what you
have found is a stereo AD stream that your decoder is not decoding
properly, but I am purely guessing there. (I don't know what WTV-format
means, I'm afraid.) But I was really looking for something that works
off-air, rather than recordings.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'm very peachable, if people know how to peach" - Sir David Attenborough (on
being asked if he was tired of being described as impeachable), on Desert
Island Discs, 2012-1-29.