Event Accessibility Services

Talon Accessibility & Localization Services

Talon AV has more than a decade of experience designing and deploying captioning and accessibility solutions for events and live broadcasts, including for clients like Google, Microsoft, multiple campuses of the University of California, and major tech, e-sports, and lifestyle brands. Talon provides event and broadcast accessibility consulting, live streaming and live captioning system design and review, and live streaming and live event accessibility, localization, and interpretation engineering, both to our own clients and as a contract service offered to other production and AV companies.

We specialize in CEA608/708 Compliant Live Closed Caption systems, using both on-prem and cloud production workflows, and in building resilient and redundant hardware and software systems for captioning of onsite, hybrid, and virtual events.

Often our work involves consultation and system design for live simultaneous language interpretation, translated captions, ASL / Sign Language Interpretation, and multi-lanuage live streamed events.

Live Captions

One of the best ways to improve accessibility of events is to provide captions. Live video captions can be generated by AI/ Computer generated “Automatic Speech Recognition” (ASR) but the most common captioning method Talon supports is Stenographic “Communication Access Realtime Translation” or CART captions generated by a human stenographic captioner.

CART (Human Captions) vs. ASR (AI Captions)

AI Technology has come a long way in the past few years, and offers a low cost and relative ease of implementation - in some platforms it’s just a switch to turn on. For low-budget events, or for high-volume events like breakouts over many days, ASR is a reasonable option, but for high-profile events, executive keynotes, or highly technical events like programming events, medical conferences, and legal events the best and most accurate way to generate closed captions is live stenographic captioning. Stenography is a trained, skilled, and certified profession for generating verbatim transcripts. Stenographers can “type” hundreds of words a minute, transcribing your event in real time. Getting those captions to appear accurately and in sync on your video stream requires dedicated systems and technical expertise.

With human captions, it’s imperative to organize as much preparation material as possible to ensure your captioners have the industry jargon ready, and it’s often useful to have captioners available for your rehearsals so that they can hear all your speakers and get used to the language and accents before the event. Talon has extensive experience with captioner prep materials and we’ll help you collect and organize that information for the captioning team.

Likewise, with ASR captioning, there are ways to prepare and test your ASR systems in advance and upload key words and phrases to the ASR systems to improve accuracy. Talon can help with this process, and help you choose an ASR ecosystem that best fits the needs and languages of your event.

Beyond Captions

Talon’s event accessibility engineering and consulting services extend beyond captioning, because a fully accessible event needs more than captions to empower your audience and presenters. Here are some areas of accessibility that we can help you include in your event.

Sign Language Interpretation

You may ask why your event would offer both Sign Language and Captioning to your audience - Don’t they seem to serve an overlapping audience? Remember that Sign Languages are not the same as spoken or written languages, and so American Sign Language and British Sign Language, for example, have different grammar and syntax from English, and have no direct written version. That’s why we call the process “Interpretation” just like we would for a spoken language interpreter. So for an audience member or presenter whose preferred language is ASL or BSL (or one of many other Sign Languages used globally) a signing interpreter may be preferred over captions. But for an audience member who does not sign, captions may be a preferred option. Remember that providing accessibility is broadly about giving your audience multiple ways to access the information you’re providing, so that they can use the method that works best for them.

Audio Description

For audiences who are blind or low vision, providing Audio Description of your Live Events and Live Streams offers an audio (and ideally also a captioned) description of the action happening on stage or on screen. A trained Audio Describer speaks during moments when your presenters are paused or during transitions to give your audience an audio version of visual content that they may miss. In-room, audio descriptions are typically provided via wireless headsets, similar to those used for language interpretation or assistive listening systems. On a live stream, an alternative stream or alternative audio drop-down offers your audience additional audio options.

ASSISTIVE LISTENING

Assistive Listening systems offer a headset or hearing aid telecoil interface to your in-person audience members who are Deaf or hard of hearing. This allows them to individually adjust the volume of their headset or telecoil to ensure they can hear the event. Depending on your event and venue size, and your event location, offering a certain number of assistive listening systems may be required by law.

Examples of Accessibility Engineering

In-Person Events

When your mission is ensuring that 10 million children receive life saving hospital care each year, you have to sweat the small stuff. Details matter to Children’s Miracle Network, the nonprofit organization that raises funds for children's hospitals across the U.S. and Canada. Among those details are accessibility and equity, areas in the core focus of Talon Audio Visual’s Accessibility Consulting Services. In the Spring of 2023 Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals hosted their 2023 Hospital Week event in Sunny Orlando Florida, and reached out to Talon Audio Visual’s Talon Access Service to help ensure that the event was accessible to all their attendees.

Virtual Events

October 2020, we were working with a long-time client on the latest virtual iteration of their recurring live conference series. This is a major tech company that has a strong commitment to web, product, and event accessibility. As of 2020, Talon had been designing live closed caption workflows for this client for about 5 years, and having a client who shares this commitment makes them a pleasure to work with. Here is an example of the workflow Talon developed and has deployed multiple times for their events.

What is the difference between Closed and Open Captions?