How to Turn off Narration (ABC-TV)

[Sheoke]

Hello,

Tonight for some reason I am hearing narration (voice over) on the ABC channels such that every action is described. I have searched the web and found this has to do with Accessibility settings that many TVs have. I believe it is for people with visual impairment.

The thing is I only use my T4 for audio and for the life of me I could not find any Accessibilty settings on the T4 or anything I need to change to turn this annoying thing off.

I hope you can help.

Cheers, Ian

[prl]

Try looking here.

The V2 has no specific "Accessability" settings screen.

[Sheoke]

Thanks pri. I'll follow that thread.

Stange. I searched the forums using "narration" but nothing came up.

Cheers,
Ian

[prl]

Thanks pri. I'll follow that thread.

Stange. I searched the forums using "narration" but nothing came up.

My handle's prl, not pri

You don't need to follow the thread. Just do what the post that's linked to says to do.

Searching for "audio description" finds lots of posts, but you need to know that that's what you need to look for.

Anyway, just do what MrQuade suggests in the post that's at the top of the screen when you click the link.

[Sheoke]

Yep. Got it.

Thanks prl

[Paul_oz53]

Have to confess that when this topic first came up I wondered what the f@#$ is that about. Then I heard it on ABC and realised it was what I would call the accessibility track or narration. In our closeted world, "audio description" is what is thought of as "narration" to a lay audience.

I would prefer the label "narration" as it quickly gets the meaning across to a wider audience but it's too late to rewrite history!

[prl]

IIRC, it's called "audio description" on the ABC in the banner at the beginning of programs that have it.

Even broadcasters seem to be a bit confused about to what to call it. An item from the American ABC that MrQuade linked to from here, starts ' "Audio description" (also referred to as "video description")'.

I'm not sure about using "narration" instead - that's usually used for narrative in the original video, rather than added description intended for visually handicapped people.

[Paul_oz53]

IIRC, it's called "audio description" on the ABC in the banner at the beginning of programs that have it.

Even broadcasters seem to be a bit confused about to what to call it. An item from the American ABC that MrQuade linked to from here, starts ' "Audio description" (also referred to as "video description")'.

I'm not sure about using "narration" instead - that's usually used for narrative in the original video, rather than added description intended for visually handicapped people.

I take your point but my non technical friends are unlikely to bother with the distinction.

In the end, it's an arbitrary label. As such, it becomes jargon which is adopted in a community and which has to explained to neophytes looking for acceptance into an exclusive societal group.

[raymondjpg]

The transport streams for both ABC and SBS that have this feature are being broadcast as "Audio type: visual impaired commentary". If they describe it any differently on screen before programs, are they perhaps trying to avoid giving offense by suggesting someone out there might be impaired?

[MrQuade]

Pretty sure it has always been called "Descriptive Audio" or some slight variant thereof on DVDs as well.

[netmask]

The transport streams for both ABC and SBS that have this feature are being broadcast as "Audio type: visual impaired commentary". If they describe it any differently on screen before programs, are they perhaps trying to avoid giving offense by suggesting someone out there might be impaired?

On ABC Sydney radio they were describing it as an audio help for the blind and went into the history a bit about previous trials. I think VIC is the international designation some countries are more sensitive to descriptions than others.

[prl]

I'll try to pay more attention to exactly what's in the ABC banner announcing the audio track with the additional description information.

[Grumpy_Geoff]

I'll try to pay more attention to exactly what's in the ABC banner announcing the audio track with the additional description information.

Last night -
Program start:

During the transmission:

ABC_AD#2.png (106.77 KiB) Viewed 3069 times

[prl]

Yep. That's what I was looking for.

[sabrej]

If anyone is still interested on disabling this on their T3 or T4, I found a solution.
I had to go to Setup/TV/Auto Language/ and change all the Audio Language selection to English.
I think the defaut is auto.

regards
Michael

[MrQuade]

If anyone is still interested on disabling this on their T3 or T4, I found a solution.

The easier solution as pointed out several times already is to simply press the AUDIO button and switch audio tracks to the MPEG one. The preference will be remembered.

[Grumpy_Geoff]

More coming -
"From Sunday 28 June, ABC & SBS will be providing around 14 hours each of audio described content every week, for blind and vision impaired Australians.

This follows the Federal Government’s provision of grant funding to SBS and ABC to implement audio description by 1 July 2020 and recent trials by both broadcasters.

ABC audio descriptions will feature across select titles on ABC, ABC ME, ABC Comedy, ABC KIDS and ABC News.

SBS audio descriptions will feature on select titles on SBS and SBS VICELAND."
https://tvtonight.com.au/2020/06/abc-sb ... ption.html

[sabrej]

"The easier solution as pointed out several times already is to simply press the AUDIO button and switch audio tracks to the MPEG one. The preference will be remembered."

Unfortunately, my T4, when doing this, doesn't remember the preference. That's why I use the Setup/TV/Auto Language/ option.

Regards
Michael

[MrQuade]

If you made any recordings prior to making the switch, they may default back to the narration track.

You would also need to perform the manual switch separately on each live service. I have no idea why the T4 would forget unless it happened to lose power suddenly such that the setting was not written to noon volatile storage correctly.

[prl]

If you made any recordings prior to making the switch, they may default back to the narration track.

They will use the default to the audio track setting that was in use at the time the recording was made. New recordings will default to the new audio track setting.

[peteru]

It's slightly more complicated. When you look at pmt.cpp:

Code: Select all

	if (defaultAudio != -1)
		program.defaultAudioStream = defaultAudio;
	else if (first_non_mpeg != -1 && (defaultac3 || defaultddp))
		program.defaultAudioStream = first_non_mpeg;

The code assumes that an audio track that is not MPEG must be AC3 or DD+. Unfortunately that is not the case, since AAC tracks also satisfy the non-MPEG test. So, if you have your settings configured to prefer AC3 or DD+, you will end up with the AAC track, which is what is used for the visually-impaired audio track.