RE: Accessible online media players

Another big problem when using a screen reader and playing a media file 
with sound is trying to control the volume of the media separately from 
the volume of the screen reader.  I believe that is a screen reader 
control feature needed to make playing media files easier.  The only 
screen reader that I know of that does this is the prototype from IBM's 
Chieko Asakawa called aiBrowser - see 
http://www.eclipse.org/actf/downloads/tools/aiBrowser/index.php
 
. . . Users can also adjust the volume of an individual source in order to 
identify and listen to different sound sources without losing track of the 
screen-reading software because of the sound of a video. If a content 
creator wants to provide a voice narrative for a video, he can write a 
text script as a piece of metadata; the tool adds the audio descriptions 
by using text-to-speech engines. Future plans for extending this 
technology include enabling flexible audio speed control and contributing 
this work to an open-source development project. Such contribution will 
accelerate development and adoption of tools that make Web-based 
multimedia content accessible to the visually impaired. . . 

Regards,
Phill Jenkins,