V2 Audio Description SBS

[nulliusinverba]

Could someone please advise on turning off SBS trial audio description. It is on by default and I have tried changing secondary audio from none to English but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Audio description is usually turned on in secondary audio by choosing Aus or unknown.

[MrQuade]

Press the AUDIO button from Live TV and select the MPEG audio option instead of the AAC option.

[nulliusinverba]

Thanks very much. That was very helpful.☺

[peterdeg]

Do you know how long it took me to find this answer?
It's been driving me up the wall, although it has been quite entertaining at times.

THANK YOU!

[gjm100]

I’ve checked mine and it is already set for MPEG but I’m still getting the Audio Description for programs recorded from both ABC and SBS. Any suggestions?

[prl]

But do those channels have more than one MPEG audio stream? If so, you probably need to select the other one on each channel where your'e getting audio description..

[MrQuade]

I’ve checked mine and it is already set for MPEG but I’m still getting the Audio Description for programs recorded from both ABC and SBS. Any suggestions?

You're talking about actual audio yea, not subtitles?

[prl]

I’ve checked mine and it is already set for MPEG but I’m still getting the Audio Description for programs recorded from both ABC and SBS. Any suggestions?

You're talking about actual audio yea, not subtitles?

I wondered about there being audio descriptions on ABC. I thought it was only on SBS.

[MrQuade]

I wondered about there being audio descriptions on ABC. I thought it was only on SBS.

Same. I've only ever noticed them on SBS personally, but apparently ABC is required by law to provide them
https://abc.com/audio-description

EDIT: WHOOPS, wrong ABC Don't mind me. Leaving the wrong link there for humility.

[prl]

I wondered about there being audio descriptions on ABC. I thought it was only on SBS.

Same. I've only ever noticed them on SBS personally, but apparently ABC is required by law to provide them
https://abc.com/audio-description

I'm not sure you have the right "ABC" there

But I did like how it started: ' "Audio description" (also referred to as "video description")'.

[MrQuade]

I'm not sure you have the right "ABC" there

But I did like how it started: ' "Audio description" (also referred to as "video description")'.

HAha, whoops, shows how much I was paying attention this morning. I thought the program lineup did look a bit different to what I expected!!

[gjm100]

Yes, I’m talking about the Audio.
Miriam Margolyes Almost Australian has the audio description.

[MrQuade]

Yes, I’m talking about the Audio.
Miriam Margolyes Almost Australian has the audio description.

Do you see multiple MPEG audio tracks on your recordings?

I've lined up a timer for next week's episode on ABC HD.

[Gully]

Yes, I’m talking about the Audio.
Miriam Margolyes Almost Australian has the audio description.

Do you see multiple MPEG audio tracks on your recordings?

I've lined up a timer for next week's episode on ABC HD.

I just checked yesterday's recording on ABC HD in Melbourne and there was only one audio track (MPEG) and no audio description.

[IanB]

The ABC has indeed played with Audio Description services in the past. They would tend to add an extra audio mux to the feed when it suited them. I haven't seen them do it recently.

[gjm100]

I checked the latest Miriam Margoyles show and it wasn't on that one, but the previous one they flashed a message across the bottom of the screen saying they were doing it. We've resolved the issue with SBS by changing the audio language back to English from Australia but that option didn't exist when we checked ABC so I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens with ABC in the future. Perhaps when the ABC does it more regularly we'll see both Australia and English as audio options. I'm just surprised neither SBS or ABC have mentioned it in their regular emails, and also to tell viewers how to stop it if they don't require it.

[MrQuade]

Ok, so I checked this week's recording, and it definitely has the second AAC soundtrack there.

Also, live ABC HD here in Perth is showing the second track now as well.

Should make for an easy fix for you .

[Bodogbodog]

Press the AUDIO button from Live TV and select the MPEG audio option instead of the AAC option.

Thank you - you've saved me going insane trying to work out how to get the Audio guide coming through as well on a recent SBS Viceland recording

[Greg Hudson]

I watched the ABC program "Australia's Ocean Odyssey" about the East Australian current the other night, and the AD was driving me crazy. I deleted the recording before realizing I needed it to figure out how to kill the AD. I still haven't figured it out, but fingers crossed I will soon...

[MrQuade]

I still haven't figured it out, but fingers crossed I will soon...

Couldn't be easier. Press the AUDIO button then select the other audio track.

[Grumpy_Geoff]

I watched the ABC program "Australia's Ocean Odyssey" about the East Australian current the other night, and the AD was driving me crazy. I deleted the recording before realizing I needed it to figure out how to kill the AD.

Is the recording still present in Trash?

[OzBoz]

I was reading how to turn off this annoying feature on another thread with reference to a T4. and was directed here. This thread appears to be covering a V2 and therefore I don't know how relative this is to me and my T4.

My smart LG Tv has a toggle button on the remote to disable this description, and for live Tv it works fine, so it's permanently switched off. However, whenever I record anything on the T4, the description is still evident. I can only assume from that, it is the T4 that is to blame. I always time shift any program I want to watch, so I'm copping this annoyance on anything recorded from the ABC and SBS.

I've hunted high and low for some sort o answer on the T4 but the only audio settings I can find are only concerned how the audio is output, not what's output.

I find it all the most annoying when this could have been introduced the same as closed captions/subtitles for the hearing impaired, there if you need them, but on an opt in basis. Additionally, both these stations have a spare channel transmitting in SD which would have made a better choice for an opt out feature.

Is there anyway, that someone has discovered, that I can turn this description off permanently?

Cheers
Brian

[MrQuade]

I was reading how to turn off this annoying feature on another thread with reference to a T4. and was directed here. This thread appears to be covering a V2 and therefore I don't know how relative this is to me and my T4.

Its because the V2 and the T4 operate in an identical fashion.

Press the AUDIO button on the remote and switch to the other audio track.

I find it all the most annoying when this could have been introduced the same as closed captions/subtitles for the hearing impaired, there if you need them, but on an opt in basis. Additionally, both these stations have a spare channel transmitting in SD which would have made a better choice for an opt out feature.

They are an opt in feature It just happens that the Beyonwiz PVRs happened to default to the description audio track.

Is there anyway, that someone has discovered, that I can turn this description off permanently?

Switch tracks as per the above and the setting will be remembered by the Wiz.

[prl]

It just happens that the Beyonwiz PVRs happened to default to the description audio track.

I'm a bit puzzled about this - I haven't seen this problem on our in-use T4.

[peteru]

It was certainly the case here in Sydney. All SBS and ABC services that provide this "feature" default to the audio description track. It was quite tedious to visit each service and switch the audio track to normal English. If audio decription is introduced on additional services, those will also require the switch.

There is probably something that could be coded to prefer plain old "English" track over the "aus" track, but a future software update won't help the thousands of users that have already been inconvenienced by ABC and SBS.

[OzBoz]

Its because the V2 and the T4 operate in an identical fashion.

That's nice to know.

Press the AUDIO button on the remote and switch to the other audio track.

Found it thanks.

They are an opt in feature It just happens that the Beyonwiz PVRs happened to default to the description audio track.

that makes it an opt out feature as far as I'm concerned.

Many thanks for the information. It's fixed my problem.

[scooterboy]

hi all,

i would be grateful for some clarification on this topic. i know how to switch audio on an ad-hoc basis to get rid of the annoying AD audio stream. is it possible to change the default setting so that this is off all the time, for both live and recorded programs.

i understand that any changes i might now make may not affect previous recordings. i can live with that.

thanks in advance.

pk

[peteru]

I feel your pain. I have noticed that even if you change the default from the AD track to normal track, if you rescan (to pick up new services introduced by broadcasters), the default will reset to the AD track for all services.

Off the top of my head, I don't know what code is responsible for selecting the default audio track and at the moment I don't have much spare time to investigate. If someone has the cycles to explore the code and narrow it down a bit, I'm happy to assist in changing the default audio track selection to prefer the non-AD tracks.

[prl]

is it possible to change the default setting so that this is off all the time, for both live and recorded programs.

The recording will default to the audio track setting for the channel at the time that the recording was made. Changing the default setting for SBS won't affect any of the recordings that have already been made.

I know that's an answer to a different question, but it may help explain what you're seeing.

[adoxa]

I feel your pain. I have noticed that even if you change the default from the AD track to normal track, if you rescan (to pick up new services introduced by broadcasters), the default will reset to the AD track for all services.

A simple solution/workaround is to disable "Prefer AC3 track" - that prevents it defaulting to the non-MPEG track.

[peteru]

Cool! Thanks for the tip. It also narrows down the area of code that may need attention.

[nulliusinverba]

Thanks Adoxa for that work around solution

[prl]

Cool! Thanks for the tip. It also narrows down the area of code that may need attention.

I've had a bit of a dig around. Both the ABC and SBS put their audio description on the audio stream marked "aus". The other is marked "eng" and displayed in the Audio Selection screens as "English". On some services, both streams are MPEG, and on others the "English" stream is MPEG and the "aus" stream is AAC-HE.

I can't work out from the code why disabling "Prefer AC3 track" works.

However, in the program map information, the ISO 639 language descriptor contains an audio_type field, whose defined values are:
0x00 Undefined
0x01 Clean effects
0x02 Hearing impaired
0x03 Visual impaired commentary

The audio_code is currently ignored by the code that extracts the audio language information for a service (in the loop that decodes ISO_639_LANGUAGE_DESCRIPTOR in eDVBPMTParser::getProgramInfo() in dvb/pmtparse.cpp).

If the broadcasters are compliant, then presumably the Audio Description audio streams can be identified by them having audio_code == 0x03 and handled appropriately (e.g. by having a "Prefer audio description track" setting).

As far as compliance goes, I'm not sure why the broadcasters are using "aus", since it's not a ISO 639-3 language code.

[adoxa]

I can't work out from the code why disabling "Prefer AC3 track" works.

eDVBServicePMTHandler::getProgramInfo in lib/dvb/pmt.cpp (lines 572-598). Preferring AC3 (or DDP, but we can't turn that on) will select the first non-MPEG track if there's no AC3 track.

[diesel]

Press the AUDIO button from Live TV and select the MPEG audio option instead of the AAC option.

Glad I found this post
It's been driving my better half mad listening to that audio description - harmony has returned once again

[Steve R]

MrQuade wrote: ↑
Fri May 01, 2020 15:11
Press the AUDIO button from Live TV and select the MPEG audio option instead of the AAC option.

Well I just watched Death in Paradise on the ABC and was initially mystified, being a brand new V2 owner - my Sony Bravia wasn't doing Audio Description. But I did find the schedule for the current trial on the web - both ABC and SBS.

A very useful byproduct of turning this feature off was that the wildly varying audio volume was fixed.

[adprom]

I can't work out from the code why disabling "Prefer AC3 track" works.

eDVBServicePMTHandler::getProgramInfo in lib/dvb/pmt.cpp (lines 572-598). Preferring AC3 (or DDP, but we can't turn that on) will select the first non-MPEG track if there's no AC3 track.

I find this hugely frustrating! Having to manually change it each time is annoying. Don't want to disable ac3. T4 here.

[prl]

Change it each time you do what? I've never had to change the audio encoding to avoid Audio Description.

[MrQuade]

I find this hugely frustrating! Having to manually change it each time is annoying. Don't want to disable ac3. T4 here.

The audio track only needs to be changed manually once per service. From then on, the setting should be remembered next time you visit that services.

Disabling "prefer AC3" won't actually disable AC3 either. You can still select the AC3 audio track, and it will still be enabled by default if there is no mpeg alternative (which is the case for the HD FTA services).

[adprom]

The audio track only needs to be changed manually once per service. From then on, the setting should be remembered next time you visit that services.

The setting is definitely not remembered once per service. I am forever having to switch it.

[MrQuade]

The audio track only needs to be changed manually once per service. From then on, the setting should be remembered next time you visit that services.

The setting is definitely not remembered once per service. I am forever having to switch it.

It should.
Do you have "Prefer audio track stored by service" disabled perhaps?

Also note that the "prefer AC3" setting won't actually disable AC3. You will still get Dolby audio on the HD channels as they only have the one audio track. (And even if it had several , you can always still switch)

[prl]

I have started to code this up. I'm still thinking about exactly how the user option to prefer (or not) AD channels will work.

[prl]

I've found another potential mechanism to avoid selection of the AD track if the user has audio set it up to prefer AC3.

The AD track is displayed as "aus" in the Audio Selection popup (AUDIO from live TV or playback) because "aus" isn't an ISO-639-3 language code, so it doesn't get translated into a full language name for display.

The code "aus" also doesn't appear in the table used to select preferred languages tracks in MENU>Setup>TV>Automatic language. It does have an entry for AD, but its language code is "NAR" (and displays as choice "Visual impaired commentary"). It turns out that "nar" is the ISO code for a Nigerian language, but the capitalisation distinguishes it from real ISO-639 names.

This gives another possible way to implement selection of AD - the way it appears to have been intended. All it needs is that when a soundtrack's audio language descriptor flags that it is a "visually impaired" audio type, that its language code is changed from "aus" (or whatever) to "NAR". It can then be selected as a preferred "language" in setup.

Then a user selecting "Visual impaired commentary" in the audio language setup would get the AD track, and the AD track would display as "NAR" in Audio Selection (and could easily be made to display as "Visual impaired commentary" or something more informative).

I've now even thought of a way to include the possibility of setting it up in the startup wizard without it being too intrusive for people who don''t want it.

But doing it that way as the only mechanism would need the default for the first Audio language selection to be English (SBS shows the soundtrack language as English even when it's not), and it would also need a mechanism for the language selection to pick the preferred encoding type (like AC3) if possible, instead of it just picking the first soundtrack that matches a language preference.

[prl]

Here's how Audio Selection might look like in that scheme (and that part of it might be worth doing anyway):

The audio tracks are for SBS ONE (SD), which, like ABC TV (SD), uses an MPEG track both for the plain soundtrack as well as for AD, but it also works when the sound tracks have different encoding from each other.

Changing "Visual" to be an adverb, just because it is, might be worth doing, too

Or perhaps change it completely to its commonly-used name "Audio Description".

[Gully]

Changing "Visual" to be an adverb, just because it is, might be worth doing, too

Or perhaps change it completely to its commonly-used name "Audio Description".

I think using "Audio Description" would be better both as the common term but also as "visually impaired commentary" doesn't sound right.

[prl]

I agree.

It also fits in the list without having to tweak the skin.

[adoxa]

"Audio Described" might be better (that's the term SBS uses in its EIT, and what I think ABC displays prior to a show). I think "Audio Description" is the subtitling term to describe audio.

[sub3R]

Or perhaps change it completely to its commonly-used name "Audio Description".

That may be more common, but there are probably quite a few people who don’t know what ‘audio description’ means. We previously didn’t have a clue what it meant until we started watching a recording that was recorded with the audio description audio track & then remembering that ‘audio description’ was listed at the start or the recording. Even then it wasn’t obvious to me what it was for until these Whirlpool Beyonwiz T4 posts.

It would be good if the text ‘Audio description’ could somehow be combined with ‘Visual impaired commentary’. But there isn’t enough room in one line for that.

[prl]

Or perhaps change it completely to its commonly-used name "Audio Description".

That may be more common, but there are probably quite a few people who don’t know what ‘audio description’ means. We previously didn’t have a clue what it meant until we started watching a recording that was recorded with the audio description audio track & then remembering that ‘audio description’ was listed at the start or the recording.

OK, but that was then - this is now

It would be good if the text ‘Audio description’ could somehow be combined with ‘Visual impaired commentary’. But there isn’t enough room in one line for that.

The ABC and the SBS both use the same terminology: "Audio Description" to describe the service (e.g. "Audio description (AD) is the auditory narration of a TV program."), and "Audio Described" when used as an adjective (e.g. SBS's "Audio Described Programming schedule").

The ABC describes it as:

Audio description (AD) is the auditory narration of a TV program.

It describes important visual elements of a television program, movie or performance between lines of dialogue. It is particularly beneficial to people who are blind and vision-impaired.  

And the SBS describes it as:

Audio description (AD) is the auditory narration of the non-verbal elements of a program. During gaps in dialogue, it describes visual elements such as scenes, settings, actions and costumes. It is particularly beneficial to people who are blind and vision-impaired.

ISO 13818 describes it as:

visual_impaired_commentary – This field indicates that the referenced program element is prepared for the visually impaired viewer.

The on-screen notice for the feature for the ABC is:

The following program is Audio Described on television for people with impaired vision.

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

If anyone wants to dig deeper:
https://help.abc.net.au/hc/en-us/articl ... -services- [Yes, the URL really does have a trailing hyphen]
https://www.sbs.com.au/aboutus/audio-de ... n-services