Audio description and audio subtitling with text-to-speech

[NoMoreCRAPTion]

Request

Audio description is when blind users get the videos described to them so they know what is happening on the screen. This can be done via webVTT with text-to-speech (TTS) or by having multiple audio tracks. Voiceovers from real people is preferred over synthetic voices, so most people will prefer the latter. Dubbing or voiceover done by humans is already requested in Issue #939.

Audio subtitling is when the video is translated via subtitles, but the uploader do not have the means to afford dubbing, or the residential country does not have a robust dubbing industry. About 10%-20% of people still need subtitles read out loud for various reasons if dubbing is not available for them. This is a different concept from audio descriptions. No one has made this request yet.

(it's about the same statistics for people who absolutely need subtitles but don't benefit from dubs or audio. The other 60%-80% can go either way based on cultural preferences and upbringings.)

Real world examples

I believe Yle Areena website has this feature for Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking people who don't benefit from reading translated subtitles for imported media, yet dubbed media are rare beyond children's programmes.

This is also available at NRK for Android and iOS devices.

Synthetic TTS would be a good alternative for countries which don't provide dubbing. Just providing an example of use cases beyond accessibility for blind users and disabled people who don't benefit from printed media.

Image via BIgThink

Overlaps

Inverse of Issue #3325 in regard to automatically-generated captions (or same-language subtitles via speech-to-text or STT) and similar to Issue #1342 and Issue #939 in regard to multiple (prerecorded) audio tracks.

Solutions

I found this plugin which uses the in-browser text-to-speech while looking up what is available for video.js for Issue #979 regarding interactive transcripts.

Plugin: https://www.npmjs.com/package/videojs-speak-descriptions-track

This works well on my phone, tablet and on computer: https://www.ca11y.com/videojs-speak-descriptions-track/. Compatibility is based on what is available to the viewer's browser(s).

Changes required

The only thing is that the icons need to be changed out since AD icon (which indicates audio-description) is not language-agnostic and is specifically for Anglosphere, and to indicate audio tracks done by humans is different from TTS. And a pop-up or drop-down menu for different language options. I believe the example given above already has a drop-down menu to select languages for the synthetic audio description.

Yle has this icon and it's perfect for indicating that the subtitles or captions will be read out loud with synthetic speech:

If you scroll up on the mentioned website above, you will see Yle considers audio subtitling and audio description to be two different accessibility features on their websites.

Below is the icon for audio description:

[alex9099]

Checking the newly added feature on firefox ( https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-picture-in-picture-rolls-out-subtitles/ ) makes this feature be more desirable (to be able to use subtitles on PiP).

Would be nice to see this implemented