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Post by pannoni1 on Aug 8, 2019 7:15:55 GMT -5
In 1986, Wheel of Fortune along with Jeopardy! became the first game shows to offer closed-captioning for the hearing impaired. However, for the visually impaired, up until recently, no equivalent service was offered until the introduction of the DVS, or Descriptive Video Service that's found on most major primetime shows, including ABC's Fun & Games lineup. DVS provides commentary in post-production, where an announcer would provide details that pertain to what's going on in the picture. Doing this for Jeopardy! is easy, since most of the game is simply reading the clues and having contestants responding to the clues and/or interviewing each other, so DVS could simply announce the scores now or then or describing what the contestants are wearing.
It's quite a bit more complex however on Wheel. The biggest issue would regard the puzzleboard, in terms of the length of each word, the placing of each letter as it appears, as well as describing the positioning of the puzzle in general (e.g. there is an R in Row 3, Column 5 and also at Row 4, column 4). That said, Wheel can move pretty fast, so a simplified system would also need to be used. Then on the Wheel itself, with some dollar figures having multiple amounts, you could say things like "blue $500 next to the red $600" or "green $500 next to the $5,000". I'm not sure how Wheel could pull this off, but it's an interesting idea.
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Aug 8, 2019 8:18:31 GMT -5
Then on the Wheel itself, with some dollar figures having multiple amounts, you could say things like "blue $500 next to the red $600" or "green $500 next to the $5,000". That is way too niche. The narrator on PYL doesn't describe the spaces by color or "next to $5000 and a spin". If Wheel had a DVS track, it would be limited to brief physical descriptions of the contestants ("She has blonde hair."), describing reactions ("Laura puts her hands to her face."), and as for the puzzle, likely at most just how many words are in the puzzle ("A three-word puzzle appears.") and maybe indications like "Only one letter remains.", and likely "A caption appears: 'No More Vowels'". Wheel spins for the most part don't need to be described, as Pat always states the non-top dollar amounts, so the narrator would only need to state the ones where Pat instead makes a comment like "Okay" or "This looks pretty good": "$2500", "A Beef Bucks gift tag", "Wild Card", "A trip to Hawaii", "Lose a Turn", "Chris goes Bankrupt". |
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StrangerCoug
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Post by StrangerCoug on Aug 10, 2019 14:09:05 GMT -5
I'd argue that DVS as described would work on Jeopardy!, but short of getting the puzzle state to a refreshable Braille display, which is more feasible in-studio than for a home audience, the play-at-home factor is largely going to get lost when you try to make Wheel more accessible to the blind. MarioGS describes the system I see as more plausible without creating information overload or requiring the DVS narrator to speak at an unnatural pace. At least Lingo required contestants to spell the word they were guessing and had clearly distinct sound effects for a right, misplaced, and wrong letter on the Woolery version. (Relying entirely on the sound effects breaks down on the '80s version because it skips over wrong letters, and I don't remember the Engvall version off-hand.)
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Dec 31, 2020 10:54:11 GMT -5
Bumping this thread because Celebrity Wheel is confirmed to have DVS. As I stated last year, I don't expect it to be too detailed, but I'm intrigued to find out exactly what is narrated and what isn't.
The closed captioning will presumably be done by VITAC since they do most if not all of the ABC primetime shows. They also did Wheel from Seasons 14-18 and 31-35, so the style of that may be the same as the regular episodes. VITAC also provides DVS for the ABC shows.
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MarioGS
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Post by MarioGS on Jan 8, 2021 21:31:03 GMT -5
I re-watched episode 1 of CWOF with DVS on. As with the other ABC primetime shows, it was provided by VITAC and AudioWise, with the former providing captions. The caption style was very similar to the syndicated show when VITAC did it, although Wheel amounts were still displayed whenever Pat called them out. As for the DVS, it was almost nonexistent. Very little action was described.
Repeated narrations included: "Vanna touches the board. Letters appear." during most Toss-Ups, "_____ spins the Wheel." sometimes when a player would spin for the first time in a round, and the show's title was narrated whenever returning from commercial.
Wheel spins were generally not described since Pat states the amount anyway. A couple of the 2500/5000 spins were noted in the narration, as well as Bankrupt when Chandra landed on it (but not when Tony did), and some of the MDW hits were narrated as "one million dollars."
The only time anything actually related to puzzles was described was during the KARMA KARMA KARMA KARMA KARMA CHAMELEON puzzle. When the R was called, "R's appear on the board.", but there was no narration like this for any other letter call, not even the 11 A's called on the turn after this.
Some of the more unique narrations:
"Vanna waves her hand in front of the board."
"Leslie takes deep breaths."
"Vanna walks to the other end of the board." (when Leslie pointed out that Vanna had to turn around to light up another N)
"Leslie's eyes and mouth go wide."
"Leslie sways back and forth."
"Leslie holds the Million Dollar Wedge."
"Leslie stares at the smaller wheel. She spins it."
"Glitter shines on the blue and purple wheel."
"Leslie shifts her eyes."
"Pat smiles. Leslie cheers."
"Vanna touches the board. She taps it a few times." (when the second half's TU1 wouldn't start)
"Leslie spins the Wheel. She tugs at her blazer."
"Tony claps. Chandra and Leslie applaud."
"2021 Califon Productions. All rights reserved. Sony. Sony Pictures Television Studios."
Note that DVS is only available when actually watching it on TV or a DVR'd TV airing. It is not available on ABC On Demand and I'm pretty sure it's not available on Hulu, either. Does anyone remember if J!GOAT had DVS? I know all the ABC game shows had it by summer 2019, but some of their other primetime shows, such as The Good Doctor (my favorite non-game show right now) did not start supporting it until this season.
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