SmartDescribe AI Audio Description (AD) service integrated in TelVue Connect automatically generates AD for CloudCast VOD or for downloading AD audio tracks to upload to other platforms (YouTube etc.). It will look a lot like Captioning, Translation, or AI Metadata (Summaries/Chapters) in terms of how to enable and manage in Connect. It currently supports Standard AD, which uses only gaps in existing program dialog to fit visual descriptions for visually impaired viewers.
Generate Audio Descriptions
To generate Audio Descriptions:
- From the Media Tab, select Generate Audio Descriptions from the actions menu for a given media record. This is also available from the actions menu in the Media Edit page.
- Use the Media Bulk Action Gears to Generate Audio Descriptions in bulk.
- Activities tab shows AD jobs with progress.
- Media in Connect with AD will show an AD icon, and may also have an Edit Audio Description menu option on the Medium Actions gear.
- When the job completes, an AD Audio track is automatically added to the medium’s Assets → Audio Assets Section.
- Audio Assets can also contain audio tracks uploaded directly by users.
- All Audio Assets support a simple preview, by clicking the Play arrow.
- NOTE: There is no scrub at this time, just Play and Stop.
- Gear actions include:
- Edit to edit the track info, such as the title and language setting
- Edit Audio Description
- Download to download the audio track
- Delete to delete the track
Edit Audio Descriptions
Edit Audio Description will load up a Web VTT file that represents the text of the described audio in our caption editor. This requires the Caption editor to be enabled for the Organization. The AD text can then be edited, and when published, it will create an Edit Audio Description Activity. Click here for detailed information on the SmartCaption Editor.
- The Edit AD job re-synthesizes the audio with Text-To-Speech (TTS), and tries to fit back in the available gaps. If something can no longer fit, it may be sped up to a point, and if still cannot fit, it may get skipped. The editor is best at the moment for simple edits where you use the number of words as a guideline, or just fix a few words, names, objects, etc. This will be speedy compared to a full AD job, as it does not require AI (though we may choose to include some lite AI to help shorten over budget text in the future).
Collection Automation
Collections Automations are supported to enable auto AD generation for any new items placed into the Collection (Playlists, Series, Categories)
- Navigate to the Collections tab and select Series or Playlists option.
- Select the gear icon next to the Series or Playlist you would like to automate adding Audio Descriptions trigger to media items once they are added, and choose edit.
- Select the Automations tab, then choose Audio Description from the left side menu, and engage the Audio Description radio button.
- Save your changes.
CloudCast Player
- To select AD in the CloudCast web player, click the Gear in the player control bar, then select the Audio Track selector, and select the desired track
Article Version History
- v1.0 – April 2026
