How to Access Audio Described DVDs on Your Mac

By blinky321, 29 April, 2014

Accessing Audio Described DVDs on a Mac Computer.
 
I was recently very excited to discover that I could play Audio described DVDs on my Apple computer. after inserting a DVD into my MacBook Pro and expecting my wife to have to help me turn on the audio description, I was shocked to find that I was actually able to do this independently, without having to rely on sighted assistance.
 
I sat back and waited until the computer loaded the DVD which in this case, was a film called “Did you hear about the Morgans”. The film loaded through the program DVD player witch comes with all apple Computers.

After the DVD began to play, I pushed the Space bar Button wile having VoiceOver on which paused the movie so i Could Just hear what VoiceOver was saying. I then pushed the VoiceOver keys along with the letter M, which took me up to the menu. i scrolled along the menues until i came to a Tab saying “feature”, where I was presented with a pull down Menu; which I accessed by using the down arrow and VoiceOver keys. i kept moving down the menu until I came to a submenu labelled “Audio”, which listed a number of different audio tracks that were included on the DVD, one of which was “English for the vision impaired”. After selecting this option, I restarted the movie and was shocked to find that I had been successful in turning on audio description. I now watch audio described movies on my Mac all the time and wanted to share this trick with other people who are blind or vision impaired. Happy viewing everyone!

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Comments

By Siobhan on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 17:11

Hello. Though I don't know how many movies now have an audio track, part of me wonders if things like tv shows such as NCIS might have it. If I buy the seasons which i'm planning to, i'll check. I don't think it is more the accessibility of the Mac being improved, it's more of the original poster used the menus? I used to play dvds and explore themenus all the time. My two cents worth.

By riyu12345 (not verified) on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 17:11

Hi.
If you want to get movies another way you can go to.
www.blindmicemart.com
Sign up, and you'll have access to over 3000 movies.
You do have to download one at a time through send space. but if you by a pro account you can download more than one movie at a time.

I'm glad to here you can turn on description on the mac.

By Siobhan on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 17:11

Hi Brad. depending on what the prson is looking for, this might be a good idea. but when I went recently there were very few movies up there. I thought they were redoing that part of the site, still. When did you visit last? Curious not trying to start anything. :)

By riyu12345 (not verified) on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 17:11

A couple days ago, and they have hundreds of movies and some tv series's to.

By Ekaj on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 17:11

Hello. This is exciting indeed. I have a mid-2013 Mac Book Air with a super drive. Since these don't have CD and/or DVD drives, will something like this still work?

By Dan A on Thursday, May 14, 2015 - 17:11

I read the entry about accessing dvs on a mac book pro. It is 4-15 and I am now ready to buy a mac book pro but I can find nothing on the apple.com site about a dvd drive in the mac book pro. Did they stop selling the dvd drive in the mac book pro?

By Ekaj on Thursday, April 14, 2016 - 17:11

Hi all. I recently rented 2 DVD's from my local public library, that have audio description on them. I just watched "Up" yesterday with a sighted tutor here for the beginning of the movie. Given that this was my first time using the built-in DVD player, he helped me out a bit. He had to get the actual movie started for me, because we couldn't find a way to do this with VoiceOver. Furthermore, I can't seem to find all the choices listed here. I am going to the Audio submenu, and the only choice I see is called Audio 1. I've tried pausing the musical thing at the beginning that keeps looping, but it won't pause. Am I doing something wrong here, or what? Tia for anybody's assistance with this. I will try the other DVD, and some other things. In addition, I'm going to see a sighted next-door neighbor in a bit and I'll ask him to look at things. He is also a Mac user and is very good at this type of stuff.