Skills for Access

Why this is important

Video presented for playing in Real Player normally contains a significant amount of both visual and audio information. Anyone unable to see the visual information is thus likely to miss out on information essential to understanding the video. To ensure that people who are blind or have severe visual impairment, and who cannot see the visual content, can understand Real Player video content, additional spoken audio information - audio descriptions - must be provided.

General Principles

Audio description for Real Player can be done using SMIL to combine audio descriptions with the media file - the same SMIL file can be used to combine captions. The SMIL file can be created by hand, but is usually easier with an authoring tool such as MAGpie. Be aware that Real Player offers only one additional audio track, so audio descriptions can be provided in one language only.

NB: We have provided general advice on audio description in a separate How To: Provide audio descriptions for video or animated content - general advice.

Before you continue

The advice on this page helps you avoid introducing a specific accessibility barrier, but it's not a magic formula. To avoid attempting to follow a technical solution that is not appropriate to the resource and its intended purpose, you need to know the context in which the multimedia resource is being used:

1. The purpose or aim of the multimedia resource in question, and whether it is being used to supplement another resource in the learning environment, or whether its use is required by students.
2. The target audience, their knowledge and expectations, and the type of browsing and assistive technology that they may be using.
3. Whether the information and experiences provided by the multimedia technology are already available in an equivalent, alternative form.

For more background on this approach, see our Guide to the use of multimedia in accessible e-learning.

Technique Details

The best way of creating and providing audio described video for Real Player is to use MAGpie. For more details, see How To Provide Audio Descriptions using MAGpie.

Testing

To turn audio descriptions on or off in Real Player 10 or Real One, from the 'Tools' menu, select 'Preferences', then 'Content' and select/deselect ''Use descriptive audio when available'.

The process of creation and insertion of audio descriptions requires regular reviewing and adjusting of your work to ensure that content, synchronisation and volume levels are appropriate. Even so, it's recommended that you test the audio-described video in as many versions of Real Player as you can. Feedback from end users is also highly recommended, particularly people who are blind or severely visually impaired.