TV Speak, Making Digital Television Accessible!
Note: TV Speak is currently available in the US, Spain, France and Germany.
Introducing TV Speak
People with visual disabilities can finally enjoy an accessible digital television with TV Speak.
TV Speak is an application that is installed on a computer which is equipped to receive the TV signal through a tuner card. This application allows the blind or visually impaired to use the most common functionality of digital television in an accessible way.
All text content offered by digital television is verbalized by Acapela speech synthesis or any other SAPI voice installed in the PC, so TV Speak reads aloud texts such as the information from a program, the setup menus or the complete guide to the television programs. To control the TV remotely you have to use the computer keyboard on which you installed TV Speak and for more comfort you can do it with a wireless keyboard.
Main Features
With TV Speak the blind or visually impaired can access the most common functionality of digital television. Some of TV Speak’s main features include:
- Common TV operations: Channel up and down, change the volume, etc.
- Configure both television and TV Speak parameters.
- Access to teletext.
- Access to the Electronic Program Guide (EPG).
- Tune and manage television and radio channels.
- Record television programs (image + audio, or audio only).
- Parental control.
How TV Speak works
To use TV Speak, you need a computer with Windows 7, Vista or XP operating system, and a TV socket.
Apart from the computer, you will only need:
- 1 TV antenna cable adapted for digital television (this is same one you use to watch TV).
- 1 TV tuner card for PC.
The tuner will make the connection between your computer and the TV antenna. One side has a USB port to plug into a computer and on the other side has a plug to connect the antenna. In other words, the TV antenna cable which comes from the wall is connected to the TV tuner, which in turn is connected to the PC via a USB port.
We recommend the TV tuner cards from AverMedia and Hauppage/WinTV. The TV tuner cards we successfully tested are the following:
- KWorld - USB DVB-T TV Stick II - Modelo DVB-T 395U (USB)
- AverMedia - AVerTV DVB-T Super 007 - Modelo M135D (PCI)
- AverMedia - AVerTV Volar Black HD - Modelo A850 (USB)
- AverMedia - AVerTV Hybrid+FM PCI - Modelo A16D (PCI)
- AverMedia - AVerTV Hybrid Super 007 - Modelo M135R (PCI)
- Hauppauge - WinTV MiniStick-HD (USB)
- Pinnacle - PCTV 200e (USB)
- Best Buy - Easy TV USB TDT Stick (USB)
- Woxter - TV Stick 10 (USB)
- Inventec - USB Tuner DVB-T Modelo INV-SINTDVBTU (USB)
Regarding the computer that you will use with TV Speak: the minimum requirements are:
- 1 GHz CPU with 512 MB of RAM
- Video Card compatible with DirectX video acceleration with 128MB VRAM
- Operating system Microsoft Windows 7, Vista or XP
- DirectX compatible MPEG2 decoder
- Windows Media Player
- Important: You need to have installed .NET Framework 2.0 if your computer uses Windows XP.
For more information visit www.tvspeak.es
To download TV Speak click here.
How to get it in supported countries
- For USA, click here.
- For Spain, visit www.tvspeak.es
- For France, click here.
- For Germany, click here.
