Accessibility Services: Vision Solutions

Explore solutions that help make your services work better for you.

Mobile Device Accessibility: Our mobile phones have built-in tools to help you get the most out of them.

• Apple makes it easier for people with vision accessibility needs to use an iPhone, with features like Voice Over and Audio descriptions. Live Recognition describes nearby objects, allowing users to more easily navigate their surrounding environment.
• Samsung has innovative features like TalkBack, Bixby and Gemini that enable text-to-voice functionality.
• Motorola offers features including TalkBack and Explore by Touch, which reads out the name of an app or icon when it’s touched.
  
  

Directory Assistance: Calls to Directory Assistance (411) are free of charge for home phone and mobile customers who self-identify as having accessibility needs. To learn more, call us at 1-888-345-1111 or click the online chat icon at the bottom right of every page on our website.

DVR Accessibility Features: Our TV hardware offers a number of assistive technologies, including described video and voice control, to assist people who are vision impaired. Learn more about using these features.

Accessible Content

Described Video Content: Described Video Content lets people with vision accessibility needs understand and enjoy video content. It uses a separate audio track that’s available on Secondary Audio Programming (SAP) to describe the content’s important visual details like actions, costumes, body language, scene changes and on-screen text, that aren’t conveyed through the dialogue or sound effects.Learn more about using described video.

Accessible Media Inc: Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) is a not-for-profit multimedia organization serving more than five million Canadians who are blind, partially sighted, deaf, hard of hearing, mobility or print restricted. Operating three broadcast services, AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French, AMI’s mission is to make accessible media for all Canadians. Learn more about Accessible Media Inc.

AMI Audio: AMI Audio is provided to anyone and is especially helpful for those who cannot independently access newspapers, magazines or government documents due to vision or cognitive accessibility needs. AMI Audio is Canada’s only 24/7 reading service, broadcasting readings of full-text articles from more than 600 of Canada’s newspapers and magazines. This service is available on the Secondary Audio Programming (SAP) of CBC News Network. 

You can access Secondary Audio Programming in two ways:

• Through your TV: Not all TVs have an SAP option, and directions for activating this feature vary by brand. Refer to the owner's manual that came with your TV to program SAP (sometimes identified as the LANGUAGE setting).
• SAP Receiver/VCR: Secondary Audio Programming receivers are available through AMI Audio and provide users with independent access to SAP. The receiver can be used on its own or by attaching it to your TV. The SAP receiver can also be used to access described video content from TV networks that provide this service.

Learn more about AMI Audio.