Hello, everyone!
My name is Drew, and I’m a blind professional working in the Digital Accessibility field, specializing in making streaming platforms like Pluto TV and Paramount+ more accessible for all users.
As part of the Paramount Streaming Tech Architecture team, I’m passionate about ensuring that accessibility is prioritized in every aspect of our services, from the user interface to the content we provide. I've been a long-time user of AppleVis and have greatly benefited from the wealth of knowledge here, so I wanted to introduce myself and let the community know that we're working hard to make the Pluto TV and Paramount+ platforms as inclusive as possible. I’m excited to engage with you all and share more about the work we're doing!
Comments
That's great.
Are any of these apps availibel in the UK, or is this uS only?
Description?
Are the shows or movies descriptive? Similar to what Apple does with their programs in Apple TV?
Pluto TV
My biggest issue with Pluto TV is that as soon as I open the app, something starts playing. Even before I've selected anything. This partially drowns out Voiceover, making it more difficult to actually find something. I don't use audio ducking (the feature to lower media volume when Voiceover is talking) because that feature has caused issues with volume stability on my phone. It would be nice to be able to browse Pluto without having anything playing in the background.
long standing issue with favorites
1 create an account.
2 save 15 to 20 channels as favorites.
3 attempt to navagate by favorites expected result it will read all my favorites and what is on actual result this doesn't happen. This happens on iOS.
Brad and Brooke
Brad, for the answer to your question, Yes they are in the UK.
Brooke, I understand the drop in experience is difficult with VO if you don't have audio ducking enabled. I don't have a perfect solution at the moment, but there is a "mute" button inside the player controls section. If you can manage to get to it then the app will stay muted until you find something you'd like to watch. As a side note, the instant playback was an intentional choice to mimmic traditional television where you turn it on and it is already on a channel.
Holger
There are many Audio Described titles on both platforms. If you have your iOS system settings set to "On" for Audio Description the app will listen for that and automatically switch to the AD track if available.
Dennis
Tracking this issue now, and will bump it up the priority list. What is happening here is that when you swipe through the favorites and get to the last visible favorite VO focus moves into the TabBar rather than auto scroll the guide to the next row off screen.
this is a balancing act because if we enable VO to scroll the guide then when you are performing a 1-finger swipe you will have to navigate through every row of the guide before you get to the TabBar. One could also simply explore by touch to find the TabBar but this is the Compliance vs UX struggle.
Temporary solution, if you 3-finger scroll up, the guide will paginate and move the rows up a bit. Note: there is a VO announcement that accompanies this gesture so you should hear something like "Displaying rows 5 through 12 of 400 in Favorites, from 9am to 11:30am".
pluto tv issues
Two issues I found with pluto tv on apple tv is, no matter what I do, I cannot turn audio description off, but I can turn it off on my iPhone but that does not turn it off on the
apple tv in TVOS. Second, when arrowing through the channel guide on TVOS, the channels are only announced sometimes, not all the time as I arrow through them.
the frndlytv app friendly tv app
Also, the frndlytv app for both IOS and TVOS has many issues. first: channels are not announced at all when arrowing through the guide on apple tv. second, all buttons on the IOS frndlytv app are unlabeled. This needs fixed. Other than that, I love the channel selection that frndlytv offers.
I can confirm joshes issues with apple tv Pluto app
I can confirm Joshes issues with the Pluto TV app for TV OS
Noted the Channel Guide issue
Josh and Dennis,
I've noted down the channel name issue when navigating the guide. I can't say when it will be fixed but I am aware of it.
Josh, as for your issue turning off Audio Description on Pluto TV tvOS. If you have your system setting for AD to "On" Pluto TV will always respect that setting unless you manually turn off AD on a specific item you are watching.
How to toggle AD in tvOS settings:
Go to - Settings > Accessibility > Audio Description and press select.
how to toggle AD in Pluto TV app for tvOS:
1. When watching a program bring up the player controls.
2. Swipe right through the controls until you hear "Audio and Subtitles" Press select.
a. Note: it is the last button when swiping right.
3. The Audio and Subtitles menu is 2 columns.
4. You will land on the default audio track in the left column.
5. If there are multiple audio tracks you should hear the default say "English Original" the other should be the AD and say "English Audio Description".
6. The currently active track will announce as "Selected" by VoiceOver.
Hope that helps.
Some observations
Something that I personally think would be helpful on the Paramount app for iOS in particular, is it would be nice to have a heading which would say audio description that way one could quickly jump to audio described titles. Currently if I want to find something that’s audio described, I have to click on the movie or show first, then go into the audio and subtitles interface and check if it is audio described once it is started playing.
Firefly
Completely agree, and working towards this in the future.
How to find Audio Descriptions on Pluto TV and Paramount+
For now here are two links you can use to find Audio Described content for both platforms. We are currently working on a better solution, but for now here is where you can go.
Paramount+: https://adp.acb.org/paramountad.html
Pluto TV: https://support.pluto.tv/s/article/PTV-Audio-Described-Content?language=en_US
Re: long standing issue with favorites
Hi,
I have a similar issue where finding my favourites proves tricky half the time, and I only have two channels/shows there in the first place. Often times, voiceover will just skip right over them, or I might be able to see one channel and not the other.
Finding the Tab Bar
Hi Drew,
There is actually another, very easy, way to get to the tab bar, if someone should want to.
Perform a four finger single tap in the bottom half of the screen. That will place voiceover focus on the far right of the task bar, as it is the last element one can navigate to. So, it makes the trouble you mentioned much less significant, in my opinion.
Hope this helps.
Turns out audio description is only in the US for pluto.
I thought it was odd that I wasn't finding anything.
Anyway, it's great that you're working on these apps, they're not for me personally but for those that like this kind of tv, they'll be great!
Brad and Gar
Gar, thanks for the 4 finger tap reminder. I rarely use that myself but agree it is a great way to jump down to the Tab Bar quickly.
Brad, I apologize I missunderstood your original question. I thought you were asking if the apps were in the UK not if AD was currently available.
Understood it's not your type of app, but for anyone else, stay tuned (pun intended).
Oh no.
That was my question, I was just reading the other answers here and found it odd that i couldn't find any AD stuff.
Auto Scrolling
Hello, For what it is worth, I'd suggest copying Apple. For example try the News app (well except in iOS 18.0 where it is broken.) When on a scrolling element such as a list, VO should continue to scroll it. The user can move to other components such as the taskbar with explore by touch, or by moving between containers (useful if using a Braille display.) The issue with not auto scrolling is the user will continually be bumped to the next component and have to then return, then try to scroll the component, then try to find the beginning of the component, not know how many items are displayed so swipe until leave the component and the entire inconvenience starts again. Not auto scrolling is more of an Android design choice, although even there TalkBack has a setting and is supposed to scroll the components such as lists when it is on.