This is a brief report from the events in Sunriver seen from the Accessability view. A full report and the documents will show up in http://www.pi.se/~omnitor/index.html

ITU - Telecommunication Standardization Sector Temporary Document 28 r2-E

JOINT WORKING PARTIES 1 & 2/16 Original: English _______________________________

Sunriver , 12 September 1997

Question: 9/16

SOURCE: Gunnar Hellstrom, Swedish Administration, Rapporteur Q9/16

TITLE: Summary report from Q9/16 - Accessability to Multimedia for People with Disabilities

The question has the following main items on its workplan: · Maintain the Text Telephone Automoding Recommendation V.18 · Develop recommendations for text conversation protocols in the Multimedia environment. · Provide information on Sign Language and Lip-reading use of Video communication for optimisation of videocoding for that application. A lot of work in the question is done in close collaboration with other questions and we are grateful for the excellent support we have got.

Achievements since March 1997. 1. V.18 text telephone automoding Recommendation The text telephone automoding Recommendation V.18 is lab tested in more than 3000 successful connections with 11 different types of text telephones including V.18 itself. The experience of the testing is reflected in a revision of V.18 now proposed for determination, including support for the only known missing terminals - the plain V.23 (Minitel and Prestel). Accepted! A V.18 test specification was introduced by BT. It is a working document that can be developed into a Recommendation.

2. V.CHAT universal text conversation presentation level protocol. A presentation protocol V.CHAT for text conversation is developed together with Q3/16 and Q11/16. It is intended to be used in connection with all Multimedia protoocols and with V.18 text telephony. It is based on characterwise transmission of Unicode characters. It is now proposed for determination. Accepted!

3. T.CHAT= text conversation application protocol entity in data conferencing environment. A simple protocol for text conversation in the T.120 environment is developed in collaboration with Q3/16. With that, text chatting can be implemented in a uniform way in all multimedia environments supporting T.120. T.CHAT is now proposed for determination. Accepted as T.134!

4. H.CHAT= text conversation in H.324 terminals For implementations of H.324 not catering for T.120 protocols, procedures for carrying the V.CHAT protocol in a logical H.245 channel has been established in H.245 and H.324 now proposed for determination. Accepted! They have been developed in collaboration with Q11. Similar work also started in Q13/16 and Q14/16 for H.323.

5. Videocoding for sign language and lip-reading In collaboration with Q15/16, an informative appendix to H.263 has been drafted. It covers characteristics and requirements from Sign language and lip-reading application of video telephony and gives advice on optimisation for this application. Work will continue. The goals of H.263L has accepted to have Sign language and lip-reading as one application area.

Plan for the time up to next SG16 meeting. Any feedback on the Draft Recommendations for determination will be handled. Q9 will continue developing the sign language documents and test sequences. The group asks for permission to hold one rapporteurs meeting in Europe late 1997 provided contributions are received. Accepted. Alistair Farquharson of BT is appointed editor of V.18.

------------------------------------------------ Gunnar Hellström Omnitor Alsnögatan 7, 4tr S-116 41 Stockholm SWEDEN

Tel +46 701 100 501 Fax +46 8 556 002 06

E-mail: gunnar.hellstrom@omnitor.se WWW: public-www.pi.se/~omnitor ------------------------------------------------