iPlayer Subtitles And Accessibility
If you're deaf or hard of hearing, subtitles are essential to allow you to fully experience the programme you're watching.
Even if you're not deaf, there are definitely times when you might appreciate subtitles: if you're trying to catch the news from a TV in a noisy pub, or if you're watching that last ten minutes of Doctor Who on ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer at an internet café, but have forgotten your headphones.
So we can understand why, alongside the positive feedback we received from the iPlayer launch, some people were disappointed that we couldn't include subtitles at the same time.
The first thing we need to say is: sorry.
We would have loved to include subtitles at Christmas when we first marketed the iPlayer, but unfortunately we weren't ready to do so in December.
So what are we doing to sort this?
My job is Acting Head of Audience Experience & Usability, and I head the team which has been working to ensure access for disabled people to iPlayer, making concrete our commitment to accessibility.
The team has been doing this in two ways:
- creating online versions of the access services already available on our TV broadcasts
- and making iPlayer easily navigable for all disabled people.
We've already created solutions for ensuring that iPlayer can deliver BSL (British Sign Language)-signed content. A list of these programmes is currently available from the Accessibility section of the And we're currently working on a way of filtering the iPlayer programme catalogue so that users can find BSL content more quickly.
And the team has been working on taking linear and digital TV subtitling technologies and making them work on iPlayer, building on the results of our subtitling trials over the last two years.
This work was going well until, over the course of the last six months, we discovered that the subtitling solution successfully used in the Interactive Media Player (the trial forerunner of iPlayer) was not capable of reliably providing the subtitles for the more complex and diverse range of programmes provided in iPlayer.
We needed a new solution.
So we pulled subtitles from the iPlayer beta, to ensure that we did not mislead our users.
Unfortunately, the new solution wasn't ready for December. So we've held subtitles back until we've made sure the solution is fully tested.
Testing is going well. We hope to get subtitles launched for downloads by the the end of March, and for streams by the end of May. We'll let you know on this blog when subtitles are live, so watch this space.
From there, the team will concentrate on creating an online solution for audio description, so that people with vision impairments can get a similar experience on iPlayer as they have on TV: another big challenge.
My apologies again for the delay in providing the subtitling service.
Jonathan Hassell is Acting Head of Audience Experience & Usability.
Comments
Thank you. It's good to know that you are actively trying to produce subtitles. Ever since subtitling was first introduced it has been my lifeline, and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ are the best providers of subtitles, they are even reliably broadcast on ´óÏó´«Ã½3 and ´óÏó´«Ã½4.
I am grateful every day for the service, and availability on iPlayer is worth waiting for..
How is the open source version coming along?
I'm pleased to know you're looking into Audio description for the i-player, but yet again those of us who need that or subtitles have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up. Just once it would be nice not to have to wait....
Cheers Ema
Thanks Jonathan! Even though I am not in need of subtitles, it's nice to read that you are aware of the need for them. I work with disabled people so love hearing about any plans the ´óÏó´«Ã½ have for access issues, considering I have attened meetings with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ once to have a disability equality meeting!
I love ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer! It's so cool that you can watch programmes that you may have missed, but I enjoy it anyway and keeps me interested when I cant sleep!
Why not have the signing as a different layer, so that on digital tv (via the red button) & on iplayer, it can be toggled on/off for any show that its available for.
This would also allow you to put it on prime time shows without annoying those that don't want it.
Great news - thank you for improving access for deaf people. I cannot watch TV at all without subtitles and look forward to the launch.
About time! Subtitles were available for the trial last year, then disappeared early autumn. Had a really difficult time getting the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to acknowledge this, "the subtitles are there", etc. No they were not!
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ really needs to learn how to communicate with its deaf audience better, as we've been faced with a deathly silence on this. We are licence payers too.
So when is the ´óÏó´«Ã½ going to subtitle other video / audio content online, such as news reports?
Why can't you pull the iplayer for everybody, until you get the captioning/ subtitles working properly. Then re-launch?
Why should us Deafies always be last, and the hearies first?
Why aren't you at least using Flash's built-in subtitling abilities in the streaming version in the meantime?
Thank you for explaining the issue. I was immensely angry that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ (with such a fantastic record for accessibility) had not communicated this earlier and have lobbied many legal organisations to put pressure on your organisation for the iPlayer to support subtitles. My son is deaf and we sat down to watch a downloaded film together and had to give up. I think finding out the hard way is not good!!
Anyway – thank you for taking the time to explain. We would happily be beta trialists.
Chris
I am pleased we now have subtitles on the iPlayer dowload facility. I am also very pleased with the range of programmes available.
However I do note the following re the subtitles...
not in colour
not positioned against dialogue
dialogue for 2 characters appear on same line
Are these issues likely to be resolved?
Meanwhile many thanks for your endeavors in making TV on line more accessible.
Hi
Thanks for the update - i can now see the subtitles availability in the downloads, but does not show or work in iplayer (with S on) or in Windows Media Player (with captions enabled)....has this been fully released?
Nice to see a fuller expalnation of why subtitling not availalbe.
I cam across this blog by chance - would have been nice to have had a link bbc iplayer site (?).
2 comments about subtitling tho :-
a) Its annoying when a translation (in English from foreign) is sometimes given on screen - which is neatly hidden from view by previous speakers subtitle text.
b) Some programs have text titles / descriptions (names of places / things) on screen - again often neatly hidden by subtitle text.
Regards,
Rob.