Over the years, the number of devices with built-in accessibility of some form has ballooned. Through advances in technology and decreased development costs, a range of electronics from smartphones to laptops have offered some form of access, often enabling the blind or visually impaired to use these devices independently. For a variety of reasons, televisions had not received this same treatment. Perhaps it was the prevailing notion that blind people don't have an interest in television due to its visual nature, or the apathy of manufacturers, or a combination that led to this reality.
Recent changes have resulted in some progress for those wishing to watch their favorite stars on the tube. The passage of The Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act has resulted in new rules and regulations that manufacturers of TVs and other set-top boxes must eventually follow. Meanwhile, the UK-based Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) forged a partnership with Panasonic to create the first line of talking televisions in 2012. Panasonic is no stranger to creating accessible features on its products, and is widely known for an array of telephones that include talking caller ID. As for the TVs, voice guidance is included on over 30 high-end and mid-range models released by Panasonic to the United Kingdom. This means that users seeking audible feedback are not limited to a specific model, and that blind users can pay the same as anyone else for a new TV that happened to include accessibility features.
In 2013, Panasonic brought many of these features to other countries, including the United States and Australia, giving customers in these countries their first crack at buying an accessible television. We obtained a review unit from Panasonic to determine if its latest foray into accessibility was ready for primetime.
Overview
Panasonic's voice guidance features are available on a variety of Plasma and LED televisions released in 2013. These include the VIERA WT60, DT60, ET60, and E60 Series LED models and the VIERA ZT60 and VT60 Series, which are plasma TVs. An additional interactive voice recognition feature is available on all of the lines mentioned above except the ET60 and E60 series. We'll describe both of these features below.
These models encompass many of Panasonic's high-end releases for 2013, meaning that accessibility is not available for a smaller bedroom unit, for example. As of press time, the least expensive unit was the 42-inch E60, model TC-L42E60, currently selling for around $599.
Our review unit was the 55-inch DT-60 model, one of the TVs that included both Voice Guidance and Voice Interaction. The TV comes with two remote controls, the standard remote and a touch-screen control which is used for, among other things, the Voice Interaction features. On the TV, there are a variety of ports for connectivity including HDMI, USB, and an SD card slot. Six raised buttons are located on the back of the unit near the right side including an easily identified power button that is larger than the others. The unit was quite heavy, and it is recommended to have at least two people aid in its installation. Alternatively, one may often request or pay for professional installation services when purchasing a set.
Setting Up the TV
Panasonic provides a print manual in the box as well as electronic documentation in PDF format on its website. The actual user guide includes information on setting up your TV while the eHelp document includes the bulk of the instructions. While these instructions gave me basic information for understanding the TV, some of the descriptions were visual in nature, leaving one to wonder how exactly to operate the unit. For example, here's what the eHelp says about enabling voice guidance as interpreted by my screen reader:
- Set Voice guidance to On
MENU
Menu > Sound > Voice guidance settings > Voice
guidance
Select the menu using
/
and press
Then, switch to On
using
/
and press
Since the eHelp was not getting us very far, we searched online and found a getting started guide from the RNIB (Microsoft Word format). This guide describes an accessible method for enabling Voice Guidance, but unfortunately additional roadblocks stood in the way.
When turning on the new TV for the first time, you are presented with a set-up wizard where the user language, wireless network, and other options are configured. There appears to be no way to accessibly set up the DT-60, an unfortunate oversight. It's kind of like signing the deed to a new house but not being given the keys. It's a bit troublesome that the set-up process is often ignored when creating an accessibility interface. Perhaps the assumption is that a sighted friend would be around to help enable the feature? In any case, it's a trend we hope does not continue.
Upon completing the set-up process, a tutorial is presented on the screen and is also spoken. This is the first time that any voice feedback is given to a user requiring voice output. We were instructed to press OK to continue through the tutorial, which encompasses several screens. Unfortunately, the content of the tutorial itself was not very useful and once completed, we were left with a silent TV with no apparent way to make it talk.
We turned to the RNIB help file, which describes the layout for the remote and an accessible method for turning on Voice Guidance. To do this, we pressed the Option key and then pressed Down Arrow until the Voice Guidance menu was indicated by a beep. After pressing OK, the Voice Guidance menu was then displayed and spoken, and the settings could be controlled independently.
A few basic settings are available including three different voice speeds, a verbosity level (beginner or advanced), and three volume levels for the speech. The default voice was from Nuance, familiar to anyone using VoiceOver on an iPhone. This menu and its settings were well-described with plenty of hints for the beginner user on how to navigate and change options.
That's where our success in setting up the TV ended, however. On the main screen, several options are presented including Clock, Notes, Apps, and Set-up. But choosing any of these options resulted in no speech whatsoever. This meant that basic functions such as performing a scan of available channels or toggling the setting for Audio Description were not accessible. Everything that was right about the Options screen and its accessibility was missing from virtually every other menu on the television, a rather frustrating conclusion.
What Does Work?
Sadly, this section of the article is going to be much shorter than I had hoped. While I didn't expect all of the apps or Internet-connected features to work, I did operate under the impression that I would be able to perform most basic commands with the help of Voice Guidance.
Most of the buttons on the remote don't give feedback when pressed. Among the few that work are the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons, which announce the new level as a number. The button to switch video source between TV, HDMI 1, 2, 3, and Video also generally indicates the current selection when pressed. But most other buttons either gave no audible feedback or provided just a tone indicating a menu had popped up on the screen. The Menu button itself gave an audio message that Voice Guidance was not supported on this screen and instructed me to press Exit to return to the TV.
We mentioned above a feature called Voice Interaction, where you can use your voice to enter commands. Aside from the set-up of the special voice remote being inaccessible, the feature likely won't be of huge value to a blind person. This is largely because the search results will either lead to an inaccessible screen or Web page. It's possible to speak websites by highlighting text, but the remote is touch-screen based and not designed to be accessible.
Modern televisions have evolved from a box that receives and displays pictures. For example, the Panasonic model we tested includes a music player, photo viewer, and support for Internet-connected services such as Netflix. None of these features appeared to work with Voice Guidance in our tests.
The Bigger Picture
American TV viewers face additional accessibility challenges that cannot be solved by access to the television alone. Perhaps the biggest draw of an accessible TV for users in other countries is the availability of a talking Electronic Program Guide. On the UK models, the current show, time, and description are spoken when changing channels, and one can browse the guide to learn of upcoming shows and set reminders. But in the US, it's common practice to use a set-top box to connect to cable or satellite services. So while access to TV features is definitely needed, this same level of access will also need to be included on a variety of devices that receive digital signals.
Comcast is one of the first US companies tackling this problem. A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer describes a pilot project that provided talking set-top boxes to 20 local cable users for testing. The features are expected to be available to Comcast customers in 2014 and could potentially be licensed to other cable operators. Beyond this, the Apple TV remains one of the few devices with accessibility features builtin, including an accessible set-up process. Other companies will eventually need to follow suit to remain compliant with the law, but it's too early to tell how willing they will be to do so.
Conclusion
There is still much work to be done to create a totally accessible television experience. Panasonic should be commended for being the first to propose a solution to a lingering problem, though it's far from a complete solution in reality. Currently, we couldn't recommend one of the 2013 Panasonic models with Voice Guidance based on accessibility alone.
We often focus on the negatives of products to encourage further innovation and development. The shortcomings we discussed are not insurmountable hurdles, and many could be corrected with firmware updates of existing models. And since the law is now on the side of those needing access to these devices, we expect this to be only one of many advancements in the world of accessible television. It's our job as blind and visually impaired consumers of these devices to give constructive feedback and help shape the future of television for all.
