VOICE Project > Media > Televisions

Following the request of the VOICE Project's users of increased collaboration among the television broadcasters in the development and harmonisation of broadcasts' subtitling, and the JRC Exploratory Research Project Development and harmonisation of subtitling in European television broadcasting, a declaration of interest by the EC InterService Group on Disability, chaired by EC Directorate General Employment, put the focus on needs of people with disabilities in the frame of the European Year of People with Disabilities 2003.
The design for all approach of EC Directorate General Information Society is taken into account too, as well as the aspects of standardisation supported by EC Directorate General Enterprise. The latter helped in establishing the contacts with CEN/CENELEC/ETSI in harmonisation, so that the first presentation of the proposal after its approuval was in the 22nd ICT Standards Board meeting in Sophia Antipolis (Nice, France) on 3rd July 2001.
A few meetings were held at CENELEC in Brussels, respectively on 13th December 2001, 22nd January, 15th February, 20th March and 7th May 2002, followed by the Seville Conference TV: Broadcasting for All in Seville on 13-14 June 2002 and the creation of the CENELEC Working Group Television for All. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European Disability Forum (EDF), several associations of people with disabilities and representatives of different organisations participate to the Working Group. Further meetings have been held in Brussels in October 2002 and on 29 January 2003, in Barcelona on 28 October 2003.

This Web Site is an opportunity of creating a reference point for discussing the problems related to television subtitling:

please confirm your interest in collaborating or in being informed of the activities, by publishing a message on the VOICE Discussion Forum or by sending an e-mail message to: voice@jrc.it ;
provide information on the activities that you are performing (number of weekly hours of subtitling, off-line films, on-line news) and on the contacts that you have regularly (with associations of users, broadcasters, subtitling firms, according with your role);
collect and transmit documents on rules and standards, used or suggested;
send videocassettes or CD-ROM or DVD with significant exemples of good practice;
inform on similar overviews already performed and on other on-going co-ordination activities;
(please note that speech recognition systems will be discussed as any other traditional means, the proposal's aim being not only technical, but also a social one).

We will make available all the information that you will send us and keep an agenda for contacts, meetings and tests.