Nov. 4 was a night of firsts. Among them was the first live captioned radio broadcast. Shown at a private demonstration at NPR's international headquarters in Washington, DC, and at three NPR member stations around the U.S., the election broadcast of NPR News was also carried simultaneously on the Internet.

Coordinated by NPR, Harris Cooperation and Towson University, the broadcast is part of an initiative called ICART -- or the International Center for Accessible Radio Technology -- to make radio more accessible to the millions of individuals with sensory disabilities around the world.

All five demonstration locations have reported in with highly positive feedback on the radio captioning demonstration and service plans, says Mike Starling, Chief Technology Officer, NPR. "The overwhelming sentiment was, 'Hurry up, I can't wait to have this on a continuous basis.' On the 'suggestions' front, which we encouraged, as this was really an end-to-end technology demonstration of system viability, two main themes emerged, which we fully expected based on assessment studies we've been running in the labs - to have the ability for user control - that is, to vary the speed, color, text size, etc..."

One complaint was that the election night broadcast wasn't compatible with Macintosh computers. This is because Windows Media Player on Internet Explorer was used, as this is NPR's streaming platform of choice. When viewed on a Mac, this platform cannot display streaming text. The good news is that the web-based version of the captioned radio test was merely a simulation of what captions on HD radios would eventually look like. "What you may have seen that night is not the anticipated end-game or eventual implementation," says Larry Goldberg, Director, The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH (NCAM), a partner with NPR on the Accessible HD Radio Project. "What the project is heading toward is captions displayed on radios themselves - where there is no computer program or platform to worry about."

When will this occur? NPR is targeting a national rollout as soon as late 2009, according to Starling. Two main "launch" ingredients are required to fall into place, he says. Funding for generating captions has yet to be identified, though Starling is optimistic that the same "captions brought to you by" underwriting announcements as found on TV will be the right strategy. Receiver manufacturers also have to agree to initial shipments to the U.S. "At that juncture, we should be able to commit to a service launch about six months past this milestone," Starling says.

When asked if these captions will be preserved for web archived content and podcasts, Starling says that's the objective, but this won't be in place at the time of the live captioned radio launch. "We have a basic premise that all of our technology initiatives need to be interoperable, regardless of final distribution channel," he says. "So whether calling up the content from an archived feed or a podcast it should automatically follow. In TV they have a phrase called 'AFV,' audio follows video. In this instance we use the phrase 'DFA,' data (captions) follows audio. With that as a default operating procedure, the captions should be universal on future content offerings."

© Copyrighted material, used by permission. This article can not be copied, reproduced, or redistributed without the express written consent of the author. Author's views not necessarily those of i711.com.

View Comments  |  Add Comment  |   Email this Article