Brief report from ITU-T Q9/16 - Accessability, Sunriver meeting.

[Gunnar Hellstrom]

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.


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Gunnar Hellström
Omnitor
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S-116 41 Stockholm
SWEDEN

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

E-mail: gunnar.hellstrom at omnitor.se
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