Information, caption and translation services assist people with disability to access recreation information and captioned television news, videos and DVDs.
National Information and Captioning Services
The Australian Government Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs funds organisations to provide National Information and Captioning Services for people with disability. The Australian Caption Centre and Nican are currently funded to provide these services.
Australian Caption Centre
The Australian Caption Centre (ACC) is funded to provide information on commercially available videos and DVDs. It also provides closed captioning of these products for people who are Deaf or hearing impaired.
The ACC recently completed a pilot to establish a viable audio description facility in Australia. The description facility will allow audio cues which describe scenes, landscapes and the physical appearance of characters to be added to DVDs. This will give audience members with a visual impairment access to popular DVDs.
Nican
Nican is an organisation that is funded to provide an Australia-wide information service on recreation, tourism, sports and the arts for people with disability. It refers people to organisations that offer programs and activities either to the general community or specifically for people with disability. Nican maintains a database of information on thousands of organisations across Australia.