Audio description for blind and low-vision viewers

An audio description is short spoken narration that says what is on screen, for viewers who are blind or have low vision. Eddie writes each description, speaks it in a natural voice, and puts it into a new version of your edit. You can check it, change it, and export it like any other edit.

Make an audio-described version

1. Open the project and the edit you want to describe.
2. Ask Eddie in the chat, for example: "Make an audio-described version of this edit."
3. Eddie tells you the price and the expected wait. Say yes to start.

A single video, or a video with no speech

You do not need to make an edit first. In a project with one video, ask: "Make an audio-described version of this video." Eddie makes an edit of the whole clip, then describes it. To describe one video in a project with several, name it.

A video with no narration, no speech or no sound at all works too, and it needs no transcript. With no dialogue, the whole running time is room to describe. The descriptions are spread across the video, one at a time, and never overlap. In extended mode the picture pauses only where a description needs more time than the picture gives it, which with no dialogue is rare. Standard mode keeps the running time and, with no dialogue, rarely leaves a description out.

When it is ready

When it is done, a new edit appears beside the original, named after it with (extended AD) at the end, and Eddie posts a note in the chat to say it is ready. The original edit does not change.

If the job fails, Eddie says so in the chat and the credits are refunded. You can ask again.

What the new edit holds

• Each description is a voice-over clip on the edit's voice-over track. You can play it, move past it, or delete it like any voice-over.
• Each pause is a still-frame clip in the picture. Where a description needs more time than the dialogue leaves, the picture holds on the current frame, the programme sound stops, the description is spoken, and then the edit carries on from the same point. A pause is an ordinary clip on the timeline.

Standard or extended

• Extended (the default) adds a pause wherever a description needs more room. Nothing is left out, and the new edit is longer than the original by the length of the pauses.
• Standard keeps the running time. Each description is spoken in a natural pause in the dialogue. A description that needs more room than any pause gives is left out, and Eddie tells you how many were.

Ask for the one you want, for example: "Make a standard audio description."

Voices

Choose a US female or a US male voice. Both are clear, neutral narration voices. Say which one you want when you ask.

Change the descriptions and the pauses

The new edit is an ordinary edit, so the usual tools work:

• Delete a description: remove its clip from the voice-over track.
• Change what a description says: ask Eddie to re-voice it with new words, or to describe that part of the edit again. A new take costs what any voice-over costs, and the old take is kept.
• Make a pause longer or shorter: drag the right edge of its still-frame clip on the timeline.
• Remove a pause: delete its still-frame clip. The edit closes up, and the voice-overs, titles and music after it move back with the picture.

Deleting a pause does not delete its description, and deleting a description does not delete its pause. Check the two together.

Music

Add music after you make the audio-described version. Music added to the new edit plays as one continuous track under the whole edit, pauses included, and it dips under each description.

If the original edit already has music, the new edit keeps it. The music stops at each pause and carries on in time with the picture after it.

Export it

Export the new edit like any other edit: an MP4, or a timeline for your editing app. See Export to your NLE. The MP4 is exactly what you hear and see when you play the edit.

The timeline formats carry each pause as a still image at its own place: Final Cut Pro (FCPXML), DaVinci Resolve (FCPXML or .drp), Premiere Pro (.prproj or XML) and OTIO. The stills are in Generated assets on the Export menu, beside the description audio. Keep them next to the timeline file, or relink them by file name.

Not available for an audio-described edit yet: Avid AAF, delivery to a Resolve cloud project, and delivery to a Premiere Production.

For a listener with no picture, ask Eddie for an MP3 of the audio description instead. You get one audio file: the whole soundtrack with the descriptions mixed in.

What it costs

200 credits a minute, counted on the length of the edit you describe. The length is rounded up to whole minutes, with a one-minute minimum, so an edit of 60 seconds or less is one minute. For example, a 4-minute 10-second edit costs 1,000 credits. The pauses are free and are not counted. You pay when you say yes. If the job fails, the credits come back automatically.

The job takes a while: roughly a few minutes plus about one minute for each minute of video. You can keep working while it runs, and ask Eddie where it has got to.

Review before you publish

The descriptions are AI-generated. No human reviews them. Watch the new edit before you publish it.

Good to know

• Eddie finds the pauses in the dialogue from the transcript. Media that has speech but no transcript is refused until you transcribe it. Media with no sound or no speech needs no transcript. Nothing is charged for a refusal.
• A pause that falls inside a clip Eddie cannot split goes on the nearest cut. Eddie tells you when that happened, so you can check those descriptions.
• If you change the original edit while the job runs, the job stops and the credits come back.