Hello everybody Last October, I wrote briefly to the group regarding the UK’s premier TV experience, Sky Q. I have a little more to add on this now, and some encouraging news for those vision-impaired people in the uK and, if it exists, in other countries as well.
Given that Sky is part-owned by the Murdock Corporation, I’m quite surprised that it’s not available in Australia in one shape or form. Be that as it may, my subject of discussion is the platform itself rather than availability. I’ve been using Sky, in conjunction with the Sky TV, Sky Q and Sky Go mobile apps since the end of October. These apps work fine together, but there’s one important snag, and I guess this is a deliberate policy decision on Sky’s part. And that is that it’s not possible with the entry-level subscription, to remotely view your recordings and download on-demand content from your box or via the online mechanism to your remote devices. For that functionality, you require a Sky MultiScreen subscription. Because this restriction is irksome to me, on Saturday 13 January I will be upgrading my subscription to the aforementioned Sky MultiScreen. This gives me much more flexibility. I can download and watch anything I like, recorded or on-demand, on my mobile devices, iOS or Android. I also get a Sky Q Mini box. This is a cutdown version of the main Sky Q box, and it can be placed anywhere within the home where Sky Q is visible via Wi-Fi. There’s no connection hassles, the two boxes just auto-detect and talk to one another completely seamlessly. The Sky Q Mini box streams content from the Internet via the main Sky Q box, and you can have a maximum of 4 Sky Q Mini boxes located around the home. This is an important change from the old Sky+ system, which required that a cable be run from your dish to each box in your home. With the exception of AC supply and HDMI connection to your TV, the system is totally wireless. Anything you do on your Sky Q box is mimicked on your Sky Q Mini box. So, you can begin watching a movie downstairs, and decide to go to bed halfway through. You simply pause the movie on your main box, set it and your TV to standby, and off you go to bed. Then, when you’re snuggled up warm in bed, you switch on your bedside TV, pick up your Sky Q Mini box remote, and hit Play. You pick up exactly from where you left off downstairs. This is true not only of recorded content, but also live TV as well. With Sky Q MultiScreen, it’s also possible to do that very same thing with one of your connected tablets. So, if you like your content displayed on the small screen, iPad, iPhone, Android Smart phone or tablet, you have the freedom to do exactly that. There’s one more thing which is worth mentioning at this juncture. With Sky MultiScreen, you can download the content directly to your tablet or phone, and take it with you when you go out. You can watch it totally without WiFi, and as many times as you like for as long as you like. The content is, naturally enough, protected. In other words, it will only play on those devices which are linked to your Sky Q MultiSCreen account. This obviously precludes content sharing. That’s fine by me, it’s illegal anyway. ;-) Now a. Bit of news regarding Sky Q in general. Somebody within Sky put me in direct contact with a member of their development team. I’ve been discussing ways of enhancing accessibility with him. Naturally, TTS would be the most preferred and, certainly, the most dynamic form of full accessibility to Sky’s platform. However, the problems that brings would really create a lot of issues. One of which being the extra storage space on the hard drive that TTS would mandate. As I’ve told them, however, there’s no real reason why, technically speaking, it couldn’t be done. Synthetic voices are now very much optimised for the mobile platform, and quality of speech has been radically redefined over the last 10 years or so. In particular, the Acapela Group and Ivona voices are often used in commercial applications and solutions nowadays where accessibility is either required or desired. This would obviously only serve to augment Sky’s platform in terms of accessibility. But sadly, I don’t see it happening any time soon. However, there is another alternative which I’ve passed to the developers as a possible short to medium term solution which has been favourably received by them, as it would not require any additional application licensing, and the basics of the system are already in place. I’m speaking here of a system that uses beeps and tones to indicate certain conditions. For example, a beep when you set up an instant record event. Currently the blind user has no means t know whether the recording has been started or not, or has been stopped. This can make things a little difficult at times. Currently, the only beeps that Sky use is when you encounter a channel that has audio descriptions and/or subtitles available. If your box is set up, (as mine is), to use either or both of them. Mine is configured to provide audio descriptions, and it works extremely well. If, for example, I switch to Sky Cinema or an associated channel which has the descriptions enabled, my system emits a double beep as soon as I tune to the channel. So, as the member of the development team said to me himself, there’s no reason why a carefully structured system using beeps of various types couldn’t be implemented. It would just be a matter of perfecting the system and taking the time to get it right. Anyway, I’ve been asked to provide a written dosing of how, and where, I think these might be useful, and also a system which they could use to differentiate between events. One such method of doing the latter which immediately springs to my mind is Morse letters. Yes, I’m aware that most people cannot handle the full code, as I can. But if the system were implimented along simple lines, I’m sure it could be used by most. After all, it wouldn’t really be important to learn the full code. Just the sound used for each event. Indeed, one could take this a stage further by using varied pitched tones to indicate events of a specific type. For instance, one could use a descending tone to indicate that an event such as a recording has been stopped or cancelled. Conversely, an ascending tone could indicate the start of a recording or similar event. I’m sure that there are countless possibilities based on these methods whereby accessibility could be improved. And it’s on this last issue, beeps and tones, which I am looking for different feedback from others. You don’t, obviously, need to reside in the UK to participate in the discussion. I very much welcome comment from anybody anywhere who has any ideas or suggestions along these lines. Obvious, as I say, a spoken accessible interface would be the preferred option. But one has to start somewhere, and at least Sky have shown an interest in accessibility. Indeed, they have a dedicated team of advisers at Sky HQ who deal with nothing but accessibility requirements in their day-to-day work. Sky’s disabled customer base is substantial, and growing all the time. Their vision impaired customer base is also growing quite rapidly. Although I personally am quite adept at using the system now, by utilising a combination of the press-button remote control and a variety of mobile apps which talk directly to your Sky box, not everybody is so fortunate. That is why I am keen to do what I can to help Sky to make their platform as accessible to everybody as possible. I welcome your input, ladies and gentlemen. ======================================== My compliments and kindest regards Gordon Smith: <[email protected]> Accessibility & Information Technology Support Specialist.. 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