User trials of RTÉ’s digital audio description broadcasts help ensure quality
"We are extremely grateful to the CFIT team for this work, and also very glad that the results are positive." - Dr. Anne O’Connor, Special Advisor to the Director General, RTÉ.
RTÉ needed to know whether the audio description in its Digital Terrestrial Television broadcasts was of sufficient quality. CFIT organised and ran field trials with blind people in their own homes, using live test broadcasts. The positive results allowed RTÉ to proceed confidently with the rollout of audio description.
The Problem
Before launching a new service, broadcasters need to undertake pilot tests to make sure everything is working right. During RTÉ's pilot of the new Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) service in 2008, a test programme containing an additional audio description track for blind viewers was broadcast. RTÉ wanted to know whether the audio reaching viewers in their homes was of the required quality.
Why NCBI CFIT?
Being an initiative of the National Council for the Blind of Ireland, CFIT regularly tests new technologies aimed at blind and partially sighted people as well as people with other disabilities. With NCBI's nationwide network of resource workers, we could easily find people interested in testing the audio description service and could be invited into their homes to set up the equipment and administer the trial.
Outcomes
After agreeing the precise aims of the test and the information RTÉ needed to get back from it, we sat down with NCBI resource workers to work out an appropriate timetable and approach. The resource workers were trained as test facilitators, to install and set up the digital receivers, run the tests and collect data. Potential problems were avoided by adopting a two stage approach in which the installations were carried out three weeks prior to the actual test. Being a single live broadcast, we knew there would be no time to make alternative arrangements on the day if things went wrong. As usual with field trials, some unforeseen problems did arise in some test locations. There were weak signals, connection problems and one house had no spare mains sockets to plug in the digital receiver. Due to the trial design, all these problems were able to be sorted out and alternative arrangements were made where necessary, in time for the testing to take place as scheduled.
The tests went very smoothly and the results were excellent. Questionnaire data from the trial participants, backed up by observations from the facilitators, showed that the audio quality and balance were very good, with a clear voiceover at the right volume.
As a result of these trials, RTÉ will be able to proceed confidently with the rollout of audio description broadcasts on its new DTT platform.