0/5

Netflix begins to add audio descriptions

Good news for the visually impaired, beginning with Marvel's Daredevil.

2015-03-03_0944

Netflix has begun Audio descriptions on its service for the visually impaired, beginning with Marvel’s Daredevil.

Audio description is a narration track that describes what is happening on-screen, including physical actions, facial expressions, costumes, settings and scene changes. Customers can choose audio narration just like choosing the soundtrack in a different language.

According to the Netflix blog:

In coming weeks, we’ll add more titles, including current and previous seasons of the Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning political thriller House of Cards, Emmy award-winning comedy-drama series Orange is the New Black, as well as Tina Fey’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and the epic adventure series Marco Polo.

Netflix is actively committed to increasing the number of audio-visual translations for movies and shows in our English-language catalogues. We are also exploring adding audio description into other languages in the future.

Over time, we expect audio description to be available for major Netflix original series, as well as select other shows and movies. We are working with studios and other content owners to increase the amount of audio description across a range of devices including smart TVs, tablets and smartphones.

2 Responses

  1. in canada there’s a channel dedicated to it. I remember when I was there last year i stumbled on an episode of Being Human (US) with the audio descriptions, had no idea what was going on lol

  2. ABC also announced an 18 month trial of AD on iview content, but not broadcast tv. In New Zealand, AD is available on selected FTA broadcast content too.

Leave a Reply