V2 Audio Description SBS

[sub3R]

I don't have a handy SBS recording with the same notice.

One old SBS HD recording I have of ‘The World's Most Scenic Railway Journeys’ only states at the beginning of the recording; “AD. This program is Audio Described”. And in the Media/Movie List it states "Audio Described (AD)". See attached.

Just to clarify. I don’t have a problem with the text ‘Audio Described’ in the ‘Select Audio Track’ popup. I was trying to point out that not everyone would know what ‘Audio Described’ or ‘Audio Description’ in that popup means. In the Setup Menu there is always a description at the bottom that explains what each setting option does, but not in the ‘Select Audio Track’ popup.

I believe the Beyonwiz should be kept as a PVR that everyone can easily setup & use.

SBS HD Audio Described.

Media/Movie List - Audio Described.

[prl]

Just to clarify. I don’t have a problem with the text ‘Audio Described’ in the ‘Select Audio Track’ popup. I was trying to point out that not everyone would know what ‘Audio Described’ or ‘Audio Description’ in that popup means. In the Setup Menu there is always a description at the bottom that explains what each setting option does, but not in the ‘Select Audio Track’ popup.

I'm looking at adding a startup wizard screen to allow the preferred audio track language ("Audio Description" is already treated in the code as another "language") to be set in the startup wizard. My current working text text for that wizard is:

Please select your preferred audio language

Select "Audio description" to prefer sound tracks with a description of visual elements such as scenes, settings, actions and costumes to assist people who are blind and vision-impaired
To prefer the standard soundtrack, leave the selection as English
If you have no preference, set the selection to None

I think it's too wordy, but it will do for now while I try to work out why "English" isn't getting pre-selected in the list as I expected it to be

There's no room for such explanation in the Audio Selection popup.

Personally, I'd have thought that with a full-screen notice for the fact that a show has AD on the ABC, and at least some notification about AD at the start of SBS shows, that people would be starting to get uused to the term.

I believe the Beyonwiz should be kept as a PVR that everyone can easily setup & use.

I agree that that's a good goal, but personally, I don't think that it is all that easy to use.

[sub3R]

My current working text text for that wizard is:

Please select your preferred audio language

Select "Audio description" to prefer sound tracks with a description of visual elements such as scenes, settings, actions and costumes to assist people who are blind and vision-impaired
To prefer the standard soundtrack, leave the selection as English
If you have no preference, set the selection to None

I think it's too wordy, but it will do for now ...

Possibly, but that describes it clearly.

Personally, I'd have thought that with a full-screen notice for the fact that a show has AD on the ABC, and at least some notification about AD at the start of SBS shows, that people would be starting to get uused to the term.

Yes, it’s all there in text & voice for the ABC shows that have it, which is quite good. I hadn’t noticed it in any ABC recording until I went searching for one just now. SBS leaves a bit to be desired - I’ve heard the two tones when the AD notification text was displayed but I never bothered to find out what they were for.

[prl]

I hadn’t noticed it in any ABC recording until I went searching for one just now.

There's not a lot of it about. I had to hunt a bit to make some recordings to test on.

[across the ABC] Around 14 hours of content will be audio described each week.

[SBS] now regularly broadcasts more than 14 hours per week [of AD] across SBS, SBS VICELAND, NITV and SBS World Movies.

There are schedules of AD content:
https://www.abc.net.au/tv/audiodescription/
https://www.sbs.com.au/aboutus/audio-de ... rogramming

The ABC channel with the largest number of AD programs is ABC Kids.

[prl]

This is what the startup wizard's language selection screen looks like at the moment:

"English" (plain soundtrack) is preselected and the "Audio description" entry is directly below it. This breaks the sort order: when the name was "Visual impaired commentary", it sorted last, after "Ukranian". As "Audio description" it sorts between "Arabic" and "Basque", but that would be off-screen (but can be navigated to).

I'm not entirely happy with this ordering, because while it's useful here, it's not so useful being out of order in the setup screen (MENU>Setup>TV>Auto language>Audio language selection N ).

[sub3R]

This is what the startup wizard's language selection screen looks like at the moment:
screenshot_20210815174454.jpg

I think that looks quite good.

[Gully]

I notice in the program description for The Newsreader tonight on the ABC on the Beyonwiz, the description starts with "(AD)" and on the ABC's website EPG it has "Audio Described (AD)", so even the initials may eventually be enough though I'm not suggesting that here.

[adoxa]

If you're going to break the sort order anyway, why not put English first & AD second?

[Gully]

If you're going to break the sort order anyway, why not put English first & AD second?

I agree.

[peteru]

I'm looking at adding a startup wizard screen to allow the preferred audio track language

Please don't. The installation wizard should do as little as possible and not get in the way. Pull requests that complicate the initial set up process and slow it down will be rejected.

The sensible approach would be to modify the defaults such that the AD track is not the default. The tiny minority of users who prefer to have the AD track as default should have the option to enable it as the preferred track.

I am also not all that keen on having special case code to handle the broadcaster's inability to follow the standards. I suppose if the broadcaster sends an invalid language code, the ASCII representation of the decoded language code should be shown, rather than unknown. However, I'm open to reasoned arguments in this area. The preferred name for the AD track would be "Audio Description" to approximately match the terminology used by the broadcasters.

[prl]

The language code sent by both the ABC and the SBS for Audio Description is "aus" and that's exactly what's displayed in the audio selection screen in the current code.

I could add ("aus", _("Audio Description")) to the tables for language selection and for language display (and perhaps remove the selection for ("NAR", "Visual impaired commentary"), rather than hacking the language name in the C++ code.

For most users, the additional screen requires no more that reading the instructions and pressing OK, but if it will be rejected anyway, I won't add it.

[prl]

Here's the rationale behind having the language selection in the startup wizard.

First - the underlying problem that causes AD tracks to be selected after a a scan.

• The firmware defaults to having all the language preferences "None", AC3 audio is preferred, and audio track stored by service enabled.
• The problem is not directly caused by doing a service scan the scan itself doesn't chose any preferred tracks, but it does clear the per-service caches used by "audio track stored by service."
• The ABC and the SBS have their "standard" soundtrack encoded as MPEG3, and their AD soundrack encode as AAC-HE. That means that with AC3 audio preferred and no specific language set, when a user changes to a channel with AD, it will select the AD soundtrack, and cache the selection.
• That means that as the user views channels with AD soundtracks, the AD soundtrack will be set as the per-service preference, which also means that that preference will be copied into any recordings made from the channel.

For users who don't want the AD soundtrack, the problem can be stopped by choosing a channel without AD as the channel chosen immediately after the scan. That stops a channel being pre-selected as AD before the user has a chance to do anything about it. Then if the user selects English as the preferred language in MENU>Setup>TV>Automatic language>Audio language selection 1, the non-AD soundtrack will be selected and stored on all channels that have AD as well.

If a user does want the AD soundtrack, they simply do nothing at that point, and the AD soundtrack will be selected and stored for each channel.

The process for reliably selecting non-AD soundtracks is convoluted enough to warrant some change.

The simplest change is to change the default for Audio language selection 1 from None to English. Without any other change, that simply reverses the above. Users who want the non-AD soundtrack will now get that by default, but users who want AD will need to select a channel without an AD channel immediately after a scan, and then change Audio language selection 1 from English to None(!).

The reasons for adding a language selection screen into the startup wizard are:

• To make the setup choice between clear and obvious.
• To implement the choice before the scan and before any channels are used, so that the selection affects all channels with an AD soundtrack, and the user doesn't have to make a somewhat obscure first channel choice to avoid the problem.
• To inform users about how the choice can be made.

But if those reasons are insufficient, then I simply won't submit that change.

tk;dr - adding the screen seems an unnecessary step in what's supposed to be a process that's meant to be as simple as possible, but adding it simplifies the user's later setup.

[prl]

My current test code changes the default for Audio language selection 1 from None to English by adding an entry for it in the factory defaults settings file.

Is that the preferred mechanism, or should I change its coded default in UsageConfig.py?

I don't really have a strong opinion either way.

[Paul_oz53]

My current test code changes the default for Audio language selection 1 from None to English by adding an entry for it in the factory defaults settings file.

Is that the preferred mechanism, or should I change its coded default in UsageConfig.py?

I don't really have a strong opinion either way.

Coding as "English" seems more natural to me but not a biggie.

[Gully]

tk;dr - adding the screen seems an unnecessary step in what's supposed to be a process that's meant to be as simple as possible, but adding it simplifies the user's later setup.

I think you are right to have it there as it will make it clearer that it is both an option for setup and for later use.

[Twizzle]

I hope I am not putting this in entirely the wrong place but a while ago I had trouble on my U4 with SBS programmes being Audio Described and somewhere on this forum someone wrote it was merely a matter of changing a setting in set up for sound files from one sound file type to another (can't remember the details)

I made the suggested changes and I have not had a problem from that day to this, until on Sunday night on ABC Newsreeader was shown & the AD was present. Does anybody know what's changed & how to ensure that Newsreader has AD removed? If my query is in the wrong place I appologize.

Thanks in advance.

[MrQuade]

Does anybody know what's changed

Did you perform a service scan recently?

& how to ensure that Newsreader has AD removed?

Do the same thing that you did before.

I hope I am not putting this in entirely the wrong place

This thread is mostly about making changes to the code to help prevent this happening accidently again. Your post is skating on the edge of the topic. It would have been better to ask this in one of the other existing "how do I turn this AD thing off" threads.

[Twizzle]

Thanks Mr.Quade yes I did do a Scan recently. I will now go back & I find out what I did last time to eliminate it. Sorry if I intruded on this topic.

[prl]

If you have MENU>Setup>TV>Auto language>Prefer audio track stored by service enabled, then disabling Prefer AC3 track (same setup screen) won't help by itself with switching back from the AD soundtrack to the plain soundtrack.

In any case, I recommend changing Audio language selection 1 (same setup screen again) from None to English instead of disabling Prefer AC3 track, because that operates on something that is directly related to whether a soundtrack carries AD or not: some commercial broadcasts have their plain soundtrack in AC3 and some SBS and ABC channels have both the plain and AD soundtracks in MPEG.

But that has exactly the same problem as disabling Prefer AC3 track: it won't change the stored default soundtracks if Prefer audio track stored by service is enabled.

There are two ways of fixing the problem in live TV and for new recordings: change either of the settings that will fix the problem, and then re-scan, or make the settings changes and then visit all the channels with AD on an AC3-encoded soundtrack and press AUDIO to change the soundtrack to MPEG English. Having changed the setting, you won't be affected by the problem next time you scan.

Recordings made from a channel that has the AD soundtrack selected will also default to the AD soundtrack. You can only change that by pressing AUDIO when you play the recording back, and use that to change the soundtrack (you could also edit the recording's .ts.meta file to remove the saved soundtrack, but that's a bit messy).

For people who'd prefer the non-AD soundtarck, the following channels will have pre-selected the AD soundtrack if Prefer AC3 track was enabled, Audio language selection 1 was set to None and Prefer audio track stored by service was enabled (the factory defaults) when the last scan was done:
ABC TV HD, ABCKids/TV Plus, ABC ME, ABC News, SBS One HD, SBS Viceland HD, SBS World Movies, NITV.

I'm working on a fix that will make it clearer that a soundtrack has AD (even when it's on an MPEG-encoded stream), have English as the default for Audio language selection 1, and allow that setting to also be able to select Audio Description as the "language", so that people with visual impairment can have an option to prefer Audio Description, including on channels where both the plain soundtrack and the Audio Described soundtrack are encoded using MPEG.

The only holdup is about another feature that I want to add that peteru is reluctant to include.

Here's an example of what the AUDIO popup will look like (from ABC TV, where both the plain and the AD soundtracks are MPEG):

And here's an example of Audio language selection 1 set to show Audio Description as the preferred "language". You'd use that setting if you wanted AD to be pre-selected on all channels that have it (something that's not actually possible in the current firmware).

Screen Shot 2021-08-17 at 10.50.49.png (55.56 KiB) Viewed 2046 times

[prl]

My current test code changes the default for Audio language selection 1 from None to English by adding an entry for it in the factory defaults settings file.

Is that the preferred mechanism, or should I change its coded default in UsageConfig.py?

I don't really have a strong opinion either way.

I've changed my mind. I now have a fairly strong preference, and it's to make the change to the coded default for Audio language selection 1, rather than adding an entry in the factory defaults settings file.

That's because changing it in the code will make the correct change for everyone who doesn't already have Audio language selection 1 set to something other than None, while changing the factory defaults settings file would mean that the change would only be effective if people did a USB upgrade or Factory Reset and then re-entered their setup manually.

[prl]

I've submitted a pull request for my fixes to preferring the appropriate AD or non-AD soundtracks, other than the changes I'd like to make to the startup wizard. I'll make a separate pull request for the changes to the startup wizard, so that the main part of the fix doesn't get hung up on whether the startup wizard changes are wanted.

[prl]

I've submitted a pull request for my proposed changes to the startup wizard to allow the user to prefer the Audio Described or the non-AD soundtracks before the first use of the PVR.

[peteru]

I've taken a slightly different approach and made some changes that (I hope) will result in a sensible behaviour out of the box.

These will be in the next online update.

[prl]

IMO, disabling saving the audio track by service isn't a great way to avoid the problems inherent in not allowing the user to set the language preference in the startup wizard.

It will clear any user preferences for tracks in all recordings and media files. It may not affect recordings much, but may remove user soundtrack preferences in media files.

These changes will still be a big improvement over the current mess that AD soundtracks cause.

[adoxa]

(Should the ISO-639 table be CRLF?)

[prl]

(Should the ISO-639 table be CRLF?)

It seems to have had them before peteru's changes, too. It probably doesn't need to be, and it could probably also do without the other trailing whitespace that's on most lines.

[adoxa]

I meant to check the previous version before posting; if I had have I wouldn't have posted. I don't think it's really a trailing tab, but a separator indicating an empty comment.

[prl]

I meant to check the previous version before posting; if I had have I wouldn't have posted. I don't think it's really a trailing tab, but a separator indicating an empty comment.

That's true, but the code that reads the table never references the comment field, only fields 0..3 & 6.

[peteru]

The idea behind the .tab file is that it is a direct download of the official version. No modifications. If there are issues with the formatting, it's probably best to modify the parser that converts the official table to a pickle file. I did not notice any issues with the dictionary that results from loading the pickled data.

[peteru]

I think the new default of not caching the language PIDs on service/recording basis is a lot more predictable than the old behaviour. The old behaviour can be re-enabled if that is preferred. That setting now has a better description and is also prominently displayed in the audio track selection screen reached with the AUDIO button.

The new behaviour will consistently select the audio track as specified by the global user preferences. When you think about the typical use cases you have the vast majority of users that just want the normal English soundtrack always selected, no matter what they watch. Then you might have a relatively small group of people who may prefer the Audio Description tracks because of a visual impairment and those people will most likely always want that option when it is available. I really don't anticipate that there will be many people who want different settings on a per-service basis and need these settings to be sticky. However, it can still be achieved with minimal fuss.

I don't see the value in forcing a new user to make audio track selection preferences during the initial install wizard. I think that wizard is already showing way too many screens and would benefit from having a few more screens removed/consolidated. The default settings will be appropriate for almost all users and not unexpected or unexplainable for the rest.

[Greg Hudson]

I have been putting up with this AD 'feature' for years. I'm back again to see if anyone has way to permanently switch off Audio Description PLEASE.

Im sick of seeing AD on TV then having to choose the AUDIO button on the remote, then going from Aus to English mode.

Thanks, Greg.

[MrQuade]

I have been putting up with this AD 'feature' for years. I'm back again to see if anyone has way to permanently switch off Audio Description PLEASE.

Im sick of seeing AD on TV then having to choose the AUDIO button on the remote, then going from Aus to English mode.

When you select the non AD track, the Wiz should remember this setting and always pick that same track next time you visit that particular channel. You need to do this for every service/channel separately.
If you ever re-scan your channels, then that setting is lost.

Alternatively, you can disable the "prefer AC3" audio option and that should stop the Wiz from automatically selecting the AAC AD track (strange but true).

I did this and have never had the AD track re-enabled ever.
These options have always been available.

Or you can wait for the next firmware release which has a bunch of improvements to avoid automatically selecting the AD track.

Choice is yours .

[peteru]

I have been putting up with this AD 'feature' for years. I'm back again to see if anyone has way to permanently switch off Audio Description PLEASE.

Im sick of seeing AD on TV then having to choose the AUDIO button on the remote, then going from Aus to English mode.

Firmware versions 19.3 20210824 and later will default to the English audio track instead of the AD track.

You can check the beta forum for the latest available version.

[prl]

Alternatively, you can disable the "prefer AC3" audio option and that should stop the Wiz from automatically selecting the AAC AD track (strange but true).

The preferred way to do achieve this is to choose the English soundtrack in MENU>Setup>TV>Auto language>Audio language selection 1 and in the same setup screen to disable Remember audio track for each service.

If you then re-scan for service, all channels will, then default to the non-AD soundtrack, and all new recordings will default to the non-AD toundtrack. However, any recordings made while the AD soundtrack was preferred will still start up using the AD soundtrack, and you'll have to press AUDIO to select the MPEG/English soundtrack.

That's the way that the current beta (and the next official software) do it. The AD soundtrack isn't necessarily carried on an AAC-encoded soundtrack.

In all firmware up to recent betas, there's no way of explicitly selecting the AD soundtrack, if that's what you want. That is also fixed in the recent betas, and the AD soundtrack is also tagged as such in those betas when you press AUDIO.

[MrQuade]

That's the way that the current beta (and the next official software) do it. The AD soundtrack isn't necessarily carried on an AC3-encoded soundtrack.

AAC. And from my experience it has always been AAC on FTA here in Aus.

The new firmware is definitely the way to go, but my post was now about pointing out that there were existing workarounds available, and they didn't have to put up with the issue for all this time.

[prl]

That's the way that the current beta (and the next official software) do it. The AD soundtrack isn't necessarily carried on an AC3-encoded soundtrack.

AAC. And from my experience it has always been AAC on FTA here in Aus.

Fixed. I'd incorrectly used the option name.

[prl]

I have been putting up with this AD 'feature' for years.

More like "a little over a year". The ABC and SBS launched Audio Description in June 2020.

[pk49]

My V2 has started defaulting to AD whenever any change is made, channel etc. Nothing I do will save it as being 'off'. Any suggestions on why, and how to stop it?

[prl]

It's hard to be helpful when you say you've tried "everything" without saying what it is that you've tried.

The normal control for enabling and disabling AD globally is in MENU>Setup>TV>Auto language, and setting "Audio language selection 1" to English (AD off) or Audio Description (AD on).

Changing the audio stream back to English from Audio Description by pressing AUDIO and then selecting the English track will only work while you keep viewing the channel (which fits with what you describe), provided the "Remember audio track for each service" is disabled.

I think that the "Remember audio track for each service" setting in both the AUDIO screen and the Auto language settings screen will also affect how this works. It's disabled by default, and you should probably only enable it if you have a particular reason to do so (e.g. you want AD on some channels, but not on others).