Meeting audio description through existing narration

[mbgower]

• Added the word "additional" to note 1 of Understanding documents for 1.2.3 and 1.2.5 (This makes it match note 3 in the audio description definition, which reads "Where all of the video information is already provided in existing audio, no additional audio description is necessary.")
• Added a new technique "Providing audio descriptions by incorporating narration into the existing soundtrack"

[shawna-slh]

Suggested change

	<a href="../Techniques/general/G226" class="general">Providing audio descriptions by incorporating narration in the existing soundtrack</a>
	<a href="../Techniques/general/G226" class="general">Providing audio descriptions by incorporating narration in the main soundtrack</a>

I guess "existing" doesn't apply to new videos.

[mbgower]

Yeah, this is a wee bit challenging. The reason I shied away from using "main" -- which I agree is logical -- is because of the wording of the audio description definition:

narration added to the soundtrack to describe important visual details that cannot be understood from the main soundtrack alone

In a perfect world, I'd alter this definition to strip out the final phrase, and just make it "Narration added to the soundtrack to describe important visual details." That is a really nice definition, which gives us reasonable flexibility.

But despite all the qualifying notes, the current normative definition states pretty clearly that it is in addition to the main soundtrack. So I thought it was a little contradictory to say we are incorporating something in the "main soundtrack".

My use of "existing" isn't ideal, but the idea is that this is being remediated during production as opposed to post-production. Does "current" work any better?

Another possible approach is to strip out any adjective and just say "soundtrack".

[bruce-usab]

I agree that the following is problematic:

For 1.2.3 and 1.2.5, if all of the important information in the video track is already conveyed in the audio track, no audio description is necessary.

But I don't like adding additional as the adjective to audio description. Maybe:

...if all of the important information in the video track is already conveyed in the audio track, no additional narration is necessary.

[patrickhlauke]

@bruce-usab "no additional narration or audio description is necessary." is perhaps better/more to the point?

[bruce-usab]

Discussed on backlog call 4/11. Raw GitHack preview for new G226 is available.

[mbgower]

@bruce-usab

But I don't like adding additional as the adjective to audio description. Maybe:

...if all of the important information in the video track is already conveyed in the audio track, no additional narration is necessary.

We have to be cautious here. All I'm doing with existing guidance in this PR is matching the existing wording of note 3 of the audio description by adding the word "additional". I feel that by also swapping out "audio description" for "narration" that we are being a bit more intrusive to the existing language of the definition. It also potentially causes some churn.

I think it's good to add in a technique that talks about modifying/adding narration as a way to meet audio descriptions, and provides a bunch of examples of what narration means within the context of the technique. I'm less comfortable altering a note that spans multiple SCs by removing the defined term in favour of an undefined one (even if it is used in the definition!). It just seems to be more likely to invite negative responses.