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Blind and Visually Impaired Community

Full History - 2018 - 04 - 12 - ID#8bv5ca
38
A shout out to Netflix descriptive audio (self.Blind)
submitted 5.3249226787551445y ago by 775577
It appears that Netflix is on the cutting edge of descriptive audio. I think most of the Netflix originals have it. My girlfriend (blind) and I (sighted) enjoyed Stranger Things and Bright and Seven Seconds with descriptive audio. She loved it. And I stopped noticing it until it was off and I had to focus more to keep up.

Still some work to do with the various user interfaces. Apple TV has the best voiceover (settings > general > voiceover)... [our Apple TV may not be the latest gen]. But it is more effort to find the descriptive audio once you're in Netflix via Apple TV -- you have to set it to descriptive audio every episode or movie.

I came with Google Chromecast. No voiceover as far as I know. But Netflix via Chromecast has a genre for Descriptive Audio (which is not found via Apple TV). It saves us the trial-and-error experience of finding descriptive audio. Also, Netflix via Chromecast saves our last descriptive audio settings, so no need to pause and navigate thru to turn it on every episode or movie.

Neither apple or Google is perfect for it. Netflix is definitely standing out. E.g. just discovered that the latest season of Trailer Park Boys has descriptive audio. (... we'll see if she likes it... I hope so; we live in Nova Scotia!) It really is the many little things, which aren't actually little at all. Busses that automatically annouce the stop. Elevators that say the floor. Braille on business cards and official government documents and cards. Tactile paving. Apple TV's voiceover. Neflix's descriptive audio. I barely used to notice these things but now I do. And how much they're appreciated by those they help.
sadfactory 6 points 5y ago
My boyfriend (blind) loves the Netflix descriptive audio as well! Just a tip, to turn it on/off on Apple TV, you can swipe down on the remote pad while the episode is playing and change the audio settings. Much quicker than going back to the main episode menu.
MessyConfessor 6 points 5y ago
Man I keep hoping they'll add it to Breaking Bad. Seems crazy that such a culturally significant show is still inaccessible.
WeSaidMeh 7 points 5y ago
The family is sitting at the breakfast table. Nothing happens. Still nothing happens. Walter looks up while chewing. Again nothing happens.
rescueisnotamyth 3 points 5y ago
My boyfriend and I are sighted, but my father is blind. We sometimes watch shows with descriptive audio because one of us will work in the kitchen and want to be able to follow the show. We mostly used it on Mind Hunter because it showed us a lot of details we missed.
SunnyLego 3 points 5y ago
Funny how they only started using it on their originals when lots of vision impaired people complained/petitioned ect that Daredevil didn't have descriptive audio!
CondemingSocks 2 points 5y ago
Netflix is great! Really accessible with closed captioning too
texanpanda 2 points 5y ago
I one turned on descriptive audio on the web version for a show, and it kept until I turned it off. I believe when streaming on a device as well. Could've been a fluke though. May be worth a shot?
775577 [OP] 3 points 5y ago
For sure! We tend to like courtroom dramas for the dialogue driven plot. (Action movies can have longer period of sound effects only.) Descriptive audio keeps you moving with the plot in the periods between dialogue. Facial expressions, settings, who's in the scene, etc. "Furrowed brow"
voidcraftedgaming 1 points 5y ago
I’m not blind or visually impaired but I’m ASD and I can miss visual cues, facial expressions; reading between the lines is hard. Descriptive audio helps a ton with that and means I can do other things whilst ‘watching’ Netflix
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