The Media Access Group at WGBH has been pioneering and delivering accessible media to disabled adults, students, and their families, teachers, and friends for over 30 years. The Media Access Group continues to develop new means of access each year. Members of the group's collective staff represent the leading experts in their fields. And the success of their various initiatives is exemplified by a history of accomplishments and continuous growth, the integration of their innovative products and services into society at large, and the enthusiastic support they receive from organizations serving people with sensory disabilities or who have hearing or vision loss.

The Caption Center
Founded in 1972, The Caption Center was the world's first captioning agency -- pioneering access to television for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. It has gone on to set the standard for caption quality, as well as for cutting-edge software and systems development designed to improve the captioning process. The Caption Center maintains an ongoing commitment to conducting outreach among viewers with hearing loss, those learning English as a second language, and people of all ages learning to read.

Annually, The Caption Center captions more than 10,000 hours' worth of:

• broadcast and cable programs
• feature films
• large-format and IMAX films
• home videos
• music videos
• DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs)
• teleconferences
• CD-ROMs

Descriptive Video Service®
Founded in 1990, DVS® pioneered access to television for viewers who are blind or visually impaired. The service provides descriptive narration of key visual elements, which is then inserted within the natural pauses in dialogue to help low-vision viewers to better understand the story. Key visual elements are those which viewers with vision loss would ordinarily miss and include actions, costumes, gestures, facial expressions, scene changes, and onscreen text. Descriptions are accessed on TV programs via the Second Audio Program (SAP) option, which is standard on most contemporary TVs and VCRs.

DVS descriptions are currently available on:

• 169 PBS stations nationwide (reaching more than 80 percent of the nation's households)
• Turner Classic Movies cable network
• selected series on the CBS, Fox, and Nickelodeon networks
• feature films
• large-format and IMAX films
• more than 200 major home video releases available for purchase through the DVS Home Video® Catalogue or on loan at 1,300 public libraries nationwide

CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM)
Founded in 1993 to build on WGBH's expertise in the field of media access, NCAM is a research, development, and advocacy entity that works to make existing and emerging technologies in a broad range of media more accessible to all audiences. NCAM's innovative Business Partner Program engages some of the nation's leading technology and telecommunications companies in the development, implementation, and promotion of universal design to benefit all users.

NCAM's current projects include:

• Access to Convergent Media
  
• Access to Physics Interactive Video Tutor (PIVoT)
  
• Access to Rich Media
  
• Cornerstones Literacy Project
  
• Digital Television (DTV) Access Project
  
• eDescription: extended, enhanced, educational descriptions
  
• Engineering Education for Inclusive Design (EEID)
  
• research on edited captions
  
• Specifications for Advanced Learning Technologies (SALT): access to distance learning
  

NCAM's past and ongoing projects include:

• Adapted Interactive Media
  
• Captioned Media and Educational Technology: Research into Contemporary School Practice
  
• CC University: training public broadcasters to caption their programming
  
• CD-ROM Access Project
  
• Enhanced Arthur
  
• Motion Picture Access (MoPix®) Project
  
• Personal Captioning
  
• Print Access Project
  
• Universal Access Project
  
• Web Access Project
  

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