The problems at the moment is that the AD is often not made at production
time and hence often by a third party, meaning that it may air on a first
run, but when some other station does re runs the rights to the AD are not
with the programs any more, so it goes out without them.

Smaller tv systems do not seem to have to do any AD at all, for example the
movie channels of Freeview, Talking pictures and some other channels. Not
only that but a new series of an existing franchise will appear and nobody
fund AD, so that means the people following series are left with nothing.

There needs to be a better coordinated effort here, where the producers do
the AD and make it travel with the shows, not leaving it up to the good
offices of the screening company who may lose that franchise and the new one
cannot be arsed to do AD.
Brian

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"Brian Gaff" <briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:u7ol9v$2s40f$1@dont-email.me...
> The problems at the moment is that the AD is often not made at production
> time and hence often by a third party, meaning that it may air on a first
> run, but when some other station does re runs the rights to the AD are not
> with the programs any more, so it goes out without them.
>
> Smaller tv systems do not seem to have to do any AD at all, for example
> the movie channels of Freeview, Talking pictures and some other channels.
> Not only that but a new series of an existing franchise will appear and
> nobody fund AD, so that means the people following series are left with
> nothing.
>
> There needs to be a better coordinated effort here, where the producers do
> the AD and make it travel with the shows, not leaving it up to the good
> offices of the screening company who may lose that franchise and the new
> one cannot be arsed to do AD.

I agree. AD and subtitles both need to be sorted out in advance of broadcast
and to be an integral part of the programme, such that they can never be
stripped off by a subsequent repeats channel.

For subtitles, they need to handle news reports better. The words that the
newsreaders read are written in advance so they can be fed to the autocue.
Reporters out in the field write their words, often timing them to match the
cameraman's shots, so they too are known in advance of broadcast and can be
fed electronically to the studio alongside the video/audio streams. The only
truly unscripted words are those spoken off-the-cuff by a live reporter, and
even those are probably prepared in advance, if only as bullet points rather
than precise words.

And yet we get long delays and a lot of mis-hearings of words because
someone is having to re-speak the words into speech-recognition software
(or, in former times, type the words into a Palantype courtroom-record
keyboard).

There's an article about AD in this week's Radio Times (RT, 1-7 July 2023,
page 11), and the work that an audio describer does. Do you have access to
Radio Times in a form that you can read, or would you like me to scan and
OCR it?

I'm sure its available, thanks.
The thing seems to be though that some AD is definitely a one man and his
dog job, while others are done by agencies. BBC has dropped off recently in
they do not seem to realise we need facial expressions and when somebody
says about this big, they forget to say how big it was.
At the moment some of the best AD is on ch4, but as they all use the same
agencies, I guess often its how much time they are given to prepare before
it is broadcast. Some of the adverts that have AD often forget to unduck the
audio, meaning that one has to click away and back to get the volume back.
Some items tend to have the first syllable of an AD cut off. This is often
due to the fact that some sound card drivers turn off the audio and re
enabling it takes a split second there is a fix for this, but obviously
nobody told the audio describer. I also often find on the hd channels that
AD ducking is set too fast so even the gaps in the words makes the sound
bounce up and down madly.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff - briang1@blueyonder.co.uk

Blind user, so no pictures please!

This document should only be read by those persons for whom Paranoia is
normal
and its contents are probably boring and confusing. If you receive this
e-Mail
message in error, do not notify the sender immediately, instead, print it
out and make
paper animals out of it. As the rest of this disclaimer is totally
incomprehensible, we have not bothered to attach it.
"NY" <me@privacy.invalid> wrote in message
news:u7ot6q$2t07i$1@dont-email.me...
> "Brian Gaff" <briang1@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:u7ol9v$2s40f$1@dont-email.me...
>> The problems at the moment is that the AD is often not made at production
>> time and hence often by a third party, meaning that it may air on a first
>> run, but when some other station does re runs the rights to the AD are
>> not
>> with the programs any more, so it goes out without them.
>>
>> Smaller tv systems do not seem to have to do any AD at all, for example
>> the movie channels of Freeview, Talking pictures and some other
>> channels.
>> Not only that but a new series of an existing franchise will appear and
>> nobody fund AD, so that means the people following series are left with
>> nothing.
>>
>> There needs to be a better coordinated effort here, where the producers
>> do
>> the AD and make it travel with the shows, not leaving it up to the good
>> offices of the screening company who may lose that franchise and the new
>> one cannot be arsed to do AD.
>
> I agree. AD and subtitles both need to be sorted out in advance of
> broadcast
> and to be an integral part of the programme, such that they can never be
> stripped off by a subsequent repeats channel.
>
> For subtitles, they need to handle news reports better. The words that the
> newsreaders read are written in advance so they can be fed to the autocue.
> Reporters out in the field write their words, often timing them to match
> the
> cameraman's shots, so they too are known in advance of broadcast and can
> be
> fed electronically to the studio alongside the video/audio streams. The
> only
> truly unscripted words are those spoken off-the-cuff by a live reporter,
> and
> even those are probably prepared in advance, if only as bullet points
> rather than precise words.
>
> And yet we get long delays and a lot of mis-hearings of words because
> someone is having to re-speak the words into speech-recognition software
> (or, in former times, type the words into a Palantype courtroom-record
> keyboard).
>
>
> There's an article about AD in this week's Radio Times (RT, 1-7 July 2023,
> page 11), and the work that an audio describer does. Do you have access to
> Radio Times in a form that you can read, or would you like me to scan and
> OCR it?