Audio-Video Attainability

[Author: Bill Fischer]

Overview

Captions and audio descriptions are designed to take advantage of the built-in capabilities of video players. The best video players include features such as: resolution options, keyboard support, changing the speed of the video, setting how captions are displayed (e.g., text style, text size, colors, and position of the captions), and interactive transcripts. Here are two useful resources that contain detailed information about accessible video players.



Internet Bandwidth Challenges

Playing high resolution videos over the internet requires a fast internet connection. Solutions for improving the attainability for persons without broadband internet access include:

  • Providing a downloadable copy that persons can access when they have broadband access. Once downloaded, they can watch the video anywhere without requiring any internet connection.

  • Use an online video service, like YouTube, that allows viewers to adjust the video quality to match their bandwidth. This changes the pixel dimensions. The lowest dimension is typically 240p, standard high definition is 1080p, and the highest definition is 4K.



Video Export Settings

It's important for videos to be compatible with modern web browsers. The most common video export settings for web media, whether uploading to YouTube, Google Drive, or your own server are:

Video

  • Video Format: H.264 (.mp4)

  • Video Pixel Dimensions: 1920 x1080 Full HD

  • Video Target bitrate: 8 Mbps

  • Video Streaming: on

  • Audio Codec: AAC

  • Audio Sample Rate: 48 Khz

  • Audio Channels: Stereo

  • Audio Bitrate: 128

Audio Only

  • Format and Codec: AAC

  • Sample rate: 48 KHz

  • Audio channels: Stereo