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NCI
National Help Desk Launched
to Answer Media Access Questions
Microsoft Corporation is the Presenting Corporate Sponsor
Washington,
DC – The National Captioning Institute (NCI) announced today that
it will launch the NCI National Help Desk, a free service available beginning
July 4th by email, telephone, TTY and postal mail. The first of its kind
in the United States, the NCI National Help Desk will assist individual
consumers with questions and concerns about closed captioning and related
media access services. The extensive captioning experience and industry
knowledge of NCI's full-time professional staff will serve as a valuable
resource supporting the Help Desk staff in answering public inquiries.
Presented with generous support from Microsoft
Corporation, the NCI National Help Desk is designed to provide information
on topics such as the availability of captioned programming, how to resolve
problems with displaying captions, accessibility of closed captions with
digital cable and high definition television, and the availability of
closed captions in Spanish and on DVD’s and home videos. The service
will also accommodate consumer questions about described video, a service
that provides an audio description of the visual elements of video programming
for people who are blind or have low vision.
NCI estimates that more than 100 million
Americans benefit from captioned programming. These audiences include
28 million people who are deaf or hard of hearing, children and adults
learning to read, and those learning English as a second language. An
additional audience of more than 14 million people who are blind or have
low vision benefit from described video.
“NCI’s National Help Desk is
a major step forward in providing direct assistance to those who rely
on captions and described video to make television and other video programming
accessible,” said Dr. Gene Chao, Chairman and CEO of NCI. “We
are grateful to Microsoft Corporation, whose financial support helps us
to offer this important service, and salute Microsoft’s unwavering
interest in helping those with disabilities.”
The NCI National Help Desk’s web site
is located at www.ncihelpdesk.org, and can also be reached through NCI’s
web site, www.ncicap.org. Faxed inquiries can be sent to (703) 917-9878.
Telephone and TTY access is available at (703) 917-7686. Inquiries may
also be mailed to NCI at 1900 Gallows Road, Suite 3000, Vienna, VA 22182.
With offices in the Washington, DC metropolitan
area; Burbank, CA; New York, NY; Dallas, TX; and London, England, the
nonprofit National Captioning Institute is the global captioning leader,
supplying the highest quality closed-captioning and related services to
the broadcast television, cable and home video industries.
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