Great post from Bill Creswell about YouTube’s new feature to add annotations, the equivalent of speech bubbles, to your videos.

Take a look at the comments for instuctions from Bill on how to add them yourself.

From a press release from The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Experts Available to Discuss New Technologies, Newborn Screenings, Communication Options
WHO: The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (AG Bell) is the only national organization dedicated to supporting children and adults who are deaf or hard of hearing who use spoken language and hearing technology to communicate in mainstream society.

Karen Youdelman, Ed.D., President of AG Bell and oral deaf educator, can speak to identifying the signs of hearing loss in children, technological advances in auditory aid devices and communication options for deaf children. Adults and children who are deaf or hard of hearing who listen and talk also are available, as are parents who can speak to having children with hearing loss and the challenges and rewards of raising an oral deaf child.

WHAT: AG Bell’s 48th Biennial Convention at Midwest Airlines Center. Several thousand attendees include children and adults who are deaf or hard of hearing and their families as well as medical/educational professionals.

Hearing loss is the number one birth defect in the U.S. Each year, 12,000 children are identified with hearing loss at birth and nearly double that figure represents the number of children who acquire a hearing loss before school age. Due to early identification/intervention and hearing technologies such as the cochlear implant, these children can learn to listen, talk and thrive.

  WHERE:        Midwest Airlines Center, Milwaukee, Wis.

  WHEN:        June 25 through June 30,
  Spokespeople available in-studio, on-site or via telephone

WHY: Federal Legislation - Reauthorization of the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act is under consideration by the U.S. Senate. In 2000, only 45 percent of newborns were screened for hearing; today, 95 percent are screened.

Spoken Language Option is an Increasing Choice for Parents - The number of parents choosing the spoken language option for children with hearing loss has more than doubled in the last 10 years.

Hearing Assistive Technologies - Cochlear implants, digital hearing aids, and other technologies allow children with hearing loss to hear and talk.

Educational Options - More and more school age children with hearing loss are able to speak on par with their hearing peers and enter mainstream schools, saving both their families and the school system money.

CONTACT: Lauren Wilson, +1-202-289-2001, ext. 259, lauren.wilson@stratacomm.net, for The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

/PRNewswire-USNewswire — June 4/Source: The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

UPDATE: A commenter requested the source of this information, including links. Unfortunately I received this press release from a news wire service that I am subscribed to as a journalist, and the link would not be accessible to my readers without a subscription. However, the entire release is copied here in the post. Hope that helps!

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If you haven’t read the “About” section for my blog, I am a graduate journalism student at Northwestern University. As part of a class on Interactive Storytelling I had to start a news blog. I focused on web accessibility for people with handicaps and disabilities, with my interest coming from growing up with hearing impaired grandparents.

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I received a comment from a software engineer at Hulu.com. Check out the previous hulu post if you want to see the original comment, but here it is if you don’t want to do more clicking:

Hi, I’m a software engineer at Hulu working on advertising technologies. I noticed your post and wanted to let you know that we definitely hope that we can improve the experience of finding closed captioned content. In the meanwhile, the following shows on Hulu have at least some episodes with captions:

‘Til Death
American Dad!
Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?
Back To You
Bones
Cops
Decision House
Dirt
Family Guy
Hell’s Kitchen
House
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
K-Ville
King Of The Hill
Kitchen Nightmares
New Amsterdam
Talkshow with Spike Feresten
The All-For-Nots
The Moment Of Truth
The Return of Jezebel James
The Riches
The Simpsons
Unhitched

If you email us at support _at_ hulu.com we can send you a full list of episodes that have captions.

So, pretty decent number of shows available, but here’s to hoping that even more will be available soon. The technology is a developing medium, but by offering more captioned options, they will only be reaching a larger audience.

Eh, I’ve heard rave reviews about how great Hulu is for watching video online, but as far as Web accessibility goes, it’s pretty hit or miss.

At first I thought captions weren’t available when I tried to watch an episode of The Office and captions were no where to be found. But I browsed around a little bit and found this on their Support FAQs:
“Q : Can you add more closed-captioning?

We currently receive closed-captioning data for some of our shows. You’ll know closed captioning is available if you see the cc button to the left of the volume control in the video player window. Click the button and select the language to turn closed captioning on. We’re working to add it for more of our catalog all the time. The closed-captioning data that’s used for broadcast TV isn’t easily translated for online use, so we’re investigating alternative solutions to boost our closed-captioning coverage.”

So I hunted around and found closed captioning for Fox, the network that does the best job I’ve seen so far in offering captions on their Web site. I looked at several other networks and didn’t see the caption option, so it looks like it’s kind of a crap shoot.

If they had the CC logo next to the video on the navigation menu that might make things easier, rather than getting your hopes up that a certain show will have captions, only to find out that it doesn’t once it starts playing.

We’ve got another one! NBC.com does offer captions with its full episodes, but they definitely have a few kinks to work out.

The captions are pretty easy to find; you have to click on “extra features” and then the CC button. However, the captions scroll vertically to the right of the video window, making it hard to watch the video and read the captions at the same time. Also, in the two minutes that I was watching 30 Rock I noticed a few typos. Expected when you’re watching live TV, but unacceptable when its programmed into the video code.

Also, the captions are only available in “Normal” mode. If you switch to “Large” or “Full Screen” they disappear.

I really need to see if I can borrow a screen reader from somewhere so I can test out these sites’ readability. Any readers out there want to to try it out and help expand my review?

And we have a winner!

Fox, while it doesn’t have as wide of a content selection as some of the other networks, gets it right when it comes to its video player.

I’m not sure how the roll over menus would work with a screen reader, but it’s easy to find the show you want to watch and the caption option is conveniently placed on the video player window. Clear as day and easy to find. The caption button disappears when the commercials come on, so I don’t think captions are available during the ads, but hey, is that really such a big loss?

One shortcoming: it looks like the captions are only available when you’re in the regular player mode with the video window inside the fox.com browser window. If you switch to full screen mode I don’t think the captions are available.

CBS.com video player

Another disappointment … I think the CBS navigation would be easier to use with adaptive mobility devices or screen readers, which garners this site one more star. However, no captions anywhere to be found. And they don’t even have easy to find instructions or FAQs to direct you to captions.

These are very informal reviews, I’m just using the players as an average viewer would and judging how easy/difficult it is for me to find and use certain things like navigation and caption. So I can’t say definitively that these options are not available. I’m just saying if they are, they’re darn hard to find.

A question for my readers: If you watch TV or movies online, what sites or programs do you use?

abc.com full episode player

I’ve always been a big fan of abc.com. It has some of my favorite shows online so I don’t have to stress out if I miss the broadcast airing, the content is posted quickly, and the video quality is always high.

However, I’ve discovered that abc.com seems to be practically unusable as far as accessibility standards go. To access your show you pick your content from a “lobby.” This lobby spins around images for all the available shows and individual episodes. If you are using adaptive technology like a joystick for a mobility impairment or using a screen reader, I think it would be impossible to make your selection.

But let’s say you get past the gates of the lobby and you settle in to watch your program. I’ve always liked how abc.com didn’t have a lot of commercials (only two for a half-hour show and three for an hour), but once the commercial is over you have to click on a button to continue with your show. I’ve been guilty of zoning out and not being able to find the grayed-out X. What about screen readers? Will they be able to direct you where to click or will you be stuck in a never-ending cycle of the Lost plane crash?

And the most egregious mistake: NO CAPTIONS! I searched every inch of the player screen and clicked every possible button and read all the Frequently Asked Questions. No where was there a mention of captions. Nary a CC logo to be found. What’s the deal ABC? You do it for broadcast TV. Couldn’t offer the option for online viewing? Maybe I just missed it….get back to me will ya?

From the ABC FAQs:

“Which ABC shows are closed captioned?

All ABC Television Network programming is closed captioned, with the exception of regional sports programming and the overnight news, World News Now.”

However, no mention of ABC.com.

An article from CNN about a video tool in development, which would serve as an ASL dictionary. The theory is: you come across a sign that you don’t know, you sign it for the camera, and using motion detection, it will tell you what the sign means.

“I know from my own experience that it’s really hard if you see a sign that you don’t know, either in a class, in a video you’ve been assigned to watch, or even if you see it on the street, to figure out what it means,” said linguistics professor Carol Neidle, one of the project’s lead researchers along with BU’s Stan Sclaroff and Vassilis Athitsos at the University of Texas-Arlington

The researchers, working with a 3-year, $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, are in the early stages of the project, capturing thousands of ASL words on video in a brightly lit Boston University lab.

The goal is to develop a lexicon of more than 3,000 signs. The meaning of each sign is not just determined by the shape of the hands, but the movements of the hands and arms, and even facial expressions.

I find this interesting on a couple of levels. I try to speak ASL with my grandparents, but they are the only deaf people I speak to on a regular basis, and we have developed our own shorthand for many things. I find that when I try to talk to anyone else in sign language, I get completely lost. I’m also a bit of a grammar and language nerd, and I love a good reference book. Bring on the linguistics! Can’t wait to see how this tool develops.