- 1 -
AVA-O-0003
INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION / Focus Group OnAudiovisual Media Accessibility
TELECOMMUNICATION
STANDARDIZATION SECTOR
STUDY PERIOD 2009-2012 / AVA-O-0003
English only
Original: English
WG(s): / ALL / Geneva, 19 January 2012
OUTPUT DOCUMENT
Source: / Chairman FG AVA
Title: / Report of the third FG AVA meeting (Barcelona, Spain, 19 January 2012)
CONTENTS
1Introduction
2Agenda and documentation
3Accessible working methods and remote participation
5Progress and achievements of the FG AVA Meeting 3
5.1Working Group B: Audio/Video description and spoken captions
5.2Working Group C: Visual signing and sign language
5.3Working Group D: Emerging Access services
5.4Working Group F: Participation and digital media
5.5Working Group G: Digital Broadcast Television
5.6Working Group I: Mobile and handheld devices
5.7Working Group K: Access of working procedures
5.8Work plans for each of the 11 Working Groups
6FG AVA structure
7Dissemination of FG AVA work and reaching out to social networks
8Liaison statements
9Future activities
10Closing
Annex A: Meeting Agenda
Annex B: Meeting documentation
Annex C: Final list of Participants
1Introduction
The third meeting of the ITU-T Focus Group on Audiovisual Media Accessibility (FG AVA) meeting took place in Barcelona, Spain, 19 January 2012, kindly hosted by the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Centre d'Accessibilitat i Intelligència Ambiental de Catalunya(CAIAC). Forty-four participants reviewed thirty-five contributions. An average of 16 participants attended the meeting remotely. The FG AVA chairman, Mr Peter Olaf Looms (European Broadcasting Union and Denmark) chaired the meeting assisted by the Working Groups coordinators.
The FG AVA web site is:
The meeting was opened by Ms Maria José Recoder, Vice-Rector of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona(UAB), who welcomed theparticipants both onsite and remotely. The FG AVA chair started the meeting with a presentation on the mandate of the FG AVA and the recent achievements of the Focus Group. The agenda and document allocation in input document AVA-I-0055 Rev. 1 was adopted by the meeting (seeAnnex A). The report of the second meeting (output document AVAO0002) was approved by the meeting.
2Agenda and documentation
The agreed agenda for the meeting is found in Annex A.
The input documents to the meeting (contributions, meeting agenda, and list of participants) are availableat Access to documentation is restricted to TIES, or registered Guest users ( The documentation is organized in two categories, input (AVA-I-nnnn) and Output (AVA-O-nnnn) documents. Meeting documentation is shown in Annex B.
3Accessible working methods and remote participation
The presence of remote participants was a key element also for the third meeting. Approximately 16 participants from North America and Europe remotely joined the meeting and participated fully in the discussions. Those participating at a distance were very active, raising questions and contributing with comments, both in writing and via audio. UAB kindly offered different tools (namely GoToWebinar and re speaking) with the goal of facilitating the remote participation. Persons with disabilities participated remotely via GoToWebinar chat box.
Unedited transcripts of the re-speaking and broadcast archives have been posted and are available on the FG AVA website (
Participants were further reminded of the need to join the mailing list reflector in order to follow up the subsequent discussions, new documents, meeting announcements, etc. Subscription instructions are found in the FG AVA web site ( Those who need assistance should contact the FG AVA secretariat at .
4Facilities and Logistics of the Meeting no. 3
The FG AVA meeting took place in Barcelona, Spain in the premises of the UAB. The meeting was organized in closed collaboration with the UAB Centre d'Accessibilitat i Intelligència Ambiental de Catalunya, at the central building of the campus in a state-of-the-art room where many accessibility features were installed in order to host accessible meetings. The room was made available for the use of FG AVA participants by the University Dean.
The meeting made use of live captions produced using re-speaking. This is one of the most widespread means of producing live captioning for television. Live captioning is one of the most challenging access services from the production perspective.
While the delay between the speaker and the captioning is often slightly higher than with stenography, the use of re-speaking allows for some degree of language compression so that the resulting captions are easier to read and process. Subtitles produced by stenography are verbatim, and were originally developed for use in court cases, rather than for accessibility reasons.
5Progress and achievements of the FG AVA Meeting 3
The Focus Group made substantial progress in the following areas:
5.1Working Group B: Audio/Video description and spoken captions
Both WG B coordinators were present at the meeting. Mrs Pilar Orero (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona – UAB, Spain) presented the updated version of the Report from Working Group B (AVA-I-0085). Mrs Aline Remael (University College Artesis, Belgium)presented the input on the obstacles to Audio Description implementation in Europe (AVA-I-0087). AVA-I-0075 “Audio Description and Audio Subtitling: Who Needs It? AD user personas” submitted by Ms Louise Fryer (Goldsmith College, University of London) was introduced by the FG Chair and discussed in detail as is serves as a model for personas for other groups of persons with disabilities.
5.2Working Group C: Visual signing and sign language
The Working Group C coordinator,Mr Takayuki Ito (NHK, Japan), introduced in details the work in progress in this area (AVA-I-0072 – Report from Working Group C “Visual signing and sign language”). NHK input on Sign Language Animation Using TVLM was presented. TVLM is a text-based computer language that produces computer graphics (CG) animated TV programs by simply writing a script in TVML. Mr Paolo Prinetto (Politecnico di Torino, Italy) presented the work of the ATLAS (Automatic Translation into Sign Languages) project jointly carry out with the National Italian TV (RAI).
5.3Working Group D: Emerging Access services
The Working Group D Co-coordinator,Mr Takebumi Itagaki (Brunel University, UK), introduced the status of the work in this area. Two incoming liaison statements were submitted to the attention of this working group:
–AVA-I-0058 –LS from IEC TC 100 on Wireless connections to hearing aids
–AVA-I-0081 – LS from JCA-AHF on wireless hearing aid compatibility (reply to AVA-LS4)
The EHIMA (European Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association) representative (Mr Marcel Vlaming) introduced AVA-I-0076. (Technical characteristics of wireless aids for hearing impaired people operating in the VHF and UHF frequency range (EHIMA))
A proposed liaison to ETSI to be sent by FG AVA was proposed and approved.
5.4Working Group F:Participation and digital media
The Working Group F Coordinator,Mr Pradipta Biswas (University of Cambridge, UK) introduced the WG F updated report (AVAI0079). He invited FG AVA participants to cooperate to the ongoing work on a participation taxonomy.
5.5Working Group G: Digital Broadcast Television
The WG G Coordinator,Mr Peter Looms(FG AVA Chair, EBU and Denmark),introduced the updated report on “Electronic Programming Guides and on-air promotion”. Mr Edgar Rubión Soler(Indra Software Lab) briefly introduced AVA-I-0080on his inputs and commented on the work currently going on in this area.
5.6Working Group I:Mobile and handheld devices
The WG I Co-coordinator, Mr John Lee (RIM), presented the following input documents which show the Mobile broadband and the TV penetration rates worldwide. Input document AVA-I-0090 reported on parameters that enable the measurement of Internet access.
5.7Working Group K: Access of working procedures
The WG K Co-coordinator,Ms Mia Ahlgren (Swedish Disability Federation), presented the updated report of the working group (AVA-I-0082 - Report from Working Group K “Access of working procedures”) and highlighted the major challenges of making the meeting accessible, especially for remote participation. Mr Mark Magennis (National Council for the Blind Ireland) WG K Co-coordinator was, indeed, following the meeting remotely.
5.8Work plans for each of the 11 Working Groups
The input documents for these work plans are all available at the FG AVA FTP area (
6FG AVA structure
The meeting agreed to the nomination of Mr John Lee (Research in Motion, Canada) as another Working Group I “Mobile Handheld Devices” co-coordinator.
Subsequent to the meeting in Barcelona, Mr Gion Linder(SWISS TXT, Switzerland) was appointed as co-coordinator was for Working Group A “Captioning”.
As a result of this change, the revised table of the FG AVA working groups mandate and coordinators is as follows:
Working Group A: / CaptioningCoordinators:
Clyde Smith, Fox News Networks, USA
Gion Linder, SWISS TXT, Switzerland
Working Group B: / Audio/Video description and spoken captions
Coordinators:
Pilar Orero, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Aline Remael, University College Artesis, Belgium
Working Group C: / Visual signing and sign language
Coordinator:
Takayuki Ito, NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories, Japan
Working Group D: / Emerging access services
Coordinators:
David Wood, European Broadcasting Union (EBU)
Takebumi Itagaki, Brunel University, UK
Working Group E: / Electronic Programming Guides and on-air promotion
Coordinator: Peter Olaf Looms, EBU and Denmark
Working Group F: / Participation and digital media
Coordinator: Pradipta Biswas, University of Cambridge, UK
Working Group G: / Digital Broadcast Television
Coordinators:
Nick Tanton, BBC, UK
Peter Molsted, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark
Working Group H: / IPTV
Coordinator: Masahito Kawamori, NTT, Japan
Working Group I: / Mobile and handheld devices
Coordinators:
Axel Leblois, G3ict, USA
John Lee, RIM, Canada
Working Group J: / Key Performance Indicators
(WG J is divided in three sub working groups)
Sub-Working Group J.1: / Broadcast television
Coordinator: Peter Olaf Looms, EBU and Denmark
Sub-Working Group J.2: / IPTV
Coordinator: Masahito Kawamori, NTT, Japan
Working Group K: / Access of Working Procedures
Coordinators:
Mia Ahlgrem, Swedish Disability Organization, Sweden
Mark Magennis, National Council for the Blind – NCBI, Ireland
7Dissemination of FG AVA work and reaching out to social networks
The WGs F and Co-coordinators proposed to launch FG AVA on Facebook. The meeting welcomed the initiative. Ms Algren and Mr Biswas will moderate the FG AVA page on Facebook.
Subsequent note to the meeting: the link to the social network has been established as
8Liaison statements
The meeting reviewed and noted the following incoming liaison statements:
–AVA-I-0057 – Incoming Liaison Statement from ITU-R Working Party 6B to ITU-T Focus Group on Audiovisual Media Accessibility
–AVA-I-0071 – Incoming LS from JCA-AHF on Meeting report of Joint Coordination Activity on Accessibility and Human Factors (JCA-AHF)
–AVA-I-0078 – Incoming LS from ITU-T FG Distraction to ITU-T SG16 Question 26 on the needs of drivers with disabilities
–AVA-I-0077 – Incoming Liaison statement - JTC 1 Special Working Group on Accessibility Response to SWG-A N 484/AVA-LS 003-E: Liaison statement from the ITU-T Focus Group on Audiovisual Media Accessibility to the JTC 1 SWG on Accessibility (JTC 1 SWG-A N495
The meeting agreed to produce one new liaison statement addressed to ETSI, as requested in AVA-I-0076(FG AVA OLSs are available at available at
Doc. No. / Title / For / DestinationAVA-LS-7 / LS to ETSI ERM (ERM Radio Microphones, Cordless Audio and Audio Links) TG17 on Technical characteristics of wireless aids for hearing impaired people operating in the VHF and UHF frequency range / Action / ETSI ERM TG17
Information / ETSI ERM, ITU-T SG16, ITU-R SG6, ITU-R WG5, JCA-AHF
Mr Vlaming (EHIMA) and Ms Saks (Voice of TTY, USA) kindly volunteered to submit a finalized text to the secretariat.
9Future activities
An ITU FG AVA Tutorial workshop will take place in New Delhi, India, back to back with the 4th FG AVA meeting from 14 to 15 March 2012. The programme of the ITU Tutorial on Audiovisual Media Accessibility will provide an in-depth insight of topics and measures to improve the accessibility of AV media: Captioning (pre-prepared and live), Audio/Video Description and spoken captions, visual signing and sign language, emergency access services. These topics will reference examples from digital broadcast television and mobile telephony media.
Details on how to participate are available at:
The FG AVA meeting discussed the need to hold electronic drafting meeting sessions for Working Groups in April 2012. This suggestion will facilitate the progress of the deliverables for each Working Group.
The FG AVA received a proposal to held a workshop at the end of May, back to back with the 5th FG AVA meeting, to be hosted by NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), in Tokyo, Japan.
NOTE - Subsequent to the meeting, the final date for the workshop wasset to 28 May 2012.
The FG AVA received an invitation to held the 6th meeting in Canada, hosted by RIM (Research in Motion). Exact dates and location are to be defined.
The meeting plan for FG AVA is as following:
FG AVA Meeting/Event / Venue and date / NoteNo. 4 / New Delhi, India, 13 March 2012 / Confirmed
FG AVA Tutorial / New Delhi, India, 14–15 March 2012 / Confirmed
Electronic Working Groups Editing Sessions / Virtual meeting, date(s) TBD / Planned
No. 5 / Tokyo, Japan, 29 May 2012 / Confirmed
Workshop “Making Television Accessible - from Idea to Reality” / Tokyo, Japan, 28 May 2012 / Confirmed
No. 6 / Canada, September 2012 / Exact venue and dates to be confirmed
10Closing
Good progress was made during the third meeting of FG AVA concerning the deliverables. The FG AVA Chair thanked the participants – in situ and remote – who actively participated in the meeting, Mrs Maria José Recoder, Mrs Pilar Orero and all the UAB staff, the FG AVA Coordinator Mrs Alexandra Gaspari. He also thankedMr Diego Gonzales for his invaluable assistancewith remote participation, and the two re-speaking interpreters for their invaluable help and assistance prior and during the FGA VA meeting.Their able and diligent assistance made the running of the meeting smooth and efficient.
The meeting was adjourned on 19 January 2012, 1645 hours.
Annex A:
Meeting Agenda
(AVA-I-0055 Rev. 1)
Welcome note by Dr Maria José Recoder, Vice-Rector of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB
1 Opening of the Focus Group AVA and introductions
AVA-I-0086 – Presentation of the ITU-T Focus Group AVA Meeting no. 3: 19 January 2012,
Barcelona, Spain
2 Approval of draft agenda and documentation allocation
AVA-I-0055r1 - Meeting Agenda – Third FG Audiovisual Media Accessibility
3Approval of second FG AVA meeting Report
AVA-O-0002 Report of the second FG AVA meeting (Geneva, 15 September 2011)
4Review of progress on Logistics and infrastructure for the work of the FG and its Working Groups since second FG AVA meeting
5Overview of inputs addressed to 11 Working Groups
5.1Working Group: ALL - Overview of inputs addressed to All WGs
AVA-I-0056- ITU Workshop on "Telecommunications Relay Services for Persons with Disabilities", Geneva, Switzerland, 25 November 2011
AVA-I-0059 - Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and decision of 20 October 2011 order overturning the 2006 “Anglers Order”
AVA-I-0060 - Making Television Accessible: What is this report about and what is it for?
AVA-I-0061 - Making Television Accessible: Which viewers have difficulties accessing television?
AVA-I-0062 - Making Television Accessible: What can currently be done to make audiovisual content more accessible? – the value proposition
AVA-I-0063 - Making Television Accessible: Which access services can currently be offered with television programmes?
AVA-I-0068 - Making Television Accessible: Managing change – introducing and scaling up an access service
AVA-I-0069 - Making Television Accessible: Incentives and sanctions – what mechanisms exist to promote access service provision?
AVA-I-0070 - Making Television Accessible: Terminology and definitions for FG AVA
5.1Working Group A:Captioning (Clyde Smith)
AVA-I-0065 - Making Television Accessible: How are access services produced, delivered and used?
(WGs A, B, C, D, E)
AVA-I-0066 - Making Television Accessible: What does it cost to set up and run a given access service for audiovisual content? (WGs A, B, C, D, E)
AVA-I-0067 - Making Television Accessible: The market for accessibility − what business models exist so that access services can be offered on a sustainable basis? (WGs A, B, C)
AVA-I-0080 - The eAccess project (the eAccessibility network) (Indra Software Lab.)
(WGs: A, B, C, G)
5.2Working Group G:Digital Broadcast Television (Nick Tanton and Peter Mølsted)
AVA-I-0083- Report from Working Group G “Digital Broadcast Television”
AVA-I-0080 - The eAccess project (the eAccessibility network) (Indra Software Lab.)
(WGs: A, B, C, G)
10:45 – 11:15 BREAK
5.3Working Group B: Audio/Video description and spoken captions (Pilar Orero and
Aline Remael
AVA-I-0085 - Report from Working Group B “Audio/Video description and spoken captions”
AVA-I-0075- Audio Description and Audio Subtitling: Who Needs It? AD user personas
AVA-I-0065 - Making Television Accessible: How are access services produced, delivered and used?
(WGs A, B, C, D, E)
AVA-I-0066 - Making Television Accessible: What does it cost to set up and run a given access service for audiovisual content? (WGs A, B, C, D, E)
AVA-I-0067 - Making Television Accessible: The market for accessibility − what business models exist so that access services can be offered on a sustainable basis? (WGs A, B, C)
AVA-I-0080 - The eAccess project (the eAccessibility network) (Indra Software Lab.)
(WGs: A, B, C, G)
5.4Working Group C:Visual signing and sign language (Takayuki Ito)
AVA-I-0072 – Report from Working Group C “Visual signing and sign language”
AVA-I-0073 - Sign Language Animation Using TVML (NHK)
AVA-I-0074 – ATLAS: Automatic Translation into sign LAnguageS (RAI)
AVA-I-0065 - Making Television Accessible: How are access services produced, delivered and used?
(WGs A, B, C, D, E)
AVA-I-0066 - Making Television Accessible: What does it cost to set up and run a given access service for audiovisual content? (WGs A, B, C, D, E)
AVA-I-0067 - Making Television Accessible: The market for accessibility − what business models exist so that access services can be offered on a sustainable basis? (WG A, B, C)
AVA-I-0080 - The eAccess project (the eAccessibility network) (Indra Software Lab.)
(WGs: A, B, C, G)
13:00 – 14:00 LUNCH BREAK
5.5Working Group D:Emerging access services (David Wood and Takebumi Itagaki)
AVA-I-0076 -Technical characteristics of wireless aids for hearing impaired people operating in the VHF and UHF frequency range (EHIMA)
AVA-I-0058 - Incoming Liaison letter to ITU-T FG AVA from IEC TC 100 on Wireless connections to hearing aids
AVA-I-0081 - LS from JCA-AHF in reply to FG AVA LS no. 4 on wireless hearing aid compatibility
AVA-I-0064 - Making Television Accessible: Getting started – who needs to do what so that the viewer can
see television programs with access services? (WGs D and E)