Tips for Playing Videos

When you double tap the button for a video in JW library the video will usually start playing. It may not start playing if you do not have Internet access, or if JW Library is set to not use your cellular connection. It may ask for that permission every time you try to download or stream something.

If the video you opened was not downloaded before, it will start streaming it from jw.org. This is excellent if you just want to watch the video to see what it is about, or only intend to watch it once. This is because streamed videos don't take up space on your device. They are not streamed in high resolution, so they are not the best quality.

If you intend to watch the video more than once, or intend to show it to others, it is best to download the video. It will save time and data usage. It will also ensure that you can play it even when your internet connection isn't reliable. Most importantly, downloading it means that you will be able to choose the resolution ahead of time.

To Download a Video

Within a publication you can just double tap the link with the name of the video. You will then be asked if you want to play or download the video.

In the list of publications on either the Home or Library tab Touch the button with the name of the video you want.

Swipe down with 1 finger as many times as necessary to find Download, then Double tap.

If you hear More and Activate, but not Download when you swipe down repeatedly, then the video is already downloaded.

Once you double tap Download JW Library should ask what quality or resolution you want to download. Choose the highest resolution available if you intend to show it to others, can fit it on your device, and have a good internet connection. A higher resolution video will look better and have easier to see detail for any sighted person watching it.

Landscape Orientation

It is best to put your device in landscape orientation when playing videos. That means the direction that makes it longer from side to side than it is from top to bottom. If Voiceover doesn't say, "Landscape," when you turn it then there is a good chance that the orientation is locked.

To unlock orientation: On a device with a Home button touch the time in the status bar at the top of the screen. Then swipe up with 3 fingers to open Control Center.

On a device without a Home button swipe down with 1 finger from the very top of the device above where the screen starts. Lift your finger when you hear the 2nd little sound.

You want to hear VoiceOver say, "Control Center."

If VoiceOver says, "Notifications" you've swiped down too far.

When Control Center is opened swipe right until you hear, "Lock Rotation." Double tap it if it says it is locked.

On iPhones orientation can only be locked in portrait orientation. That is with the device taller than it is wide. In fact, swiping through the control center will not work with the iPhone in landscape even after orientation is unlocked.

An ipad can be locked in either portrait or landscape orientation. This means that you will have to unlock the orientation, then turn the iPad to landscape. At that point you can either leave orientation unlocked so you can turn it at any time, or relock it in landscape.

While you are in there it would be good to check the screen brightness. Swipe up on the brightness control if it is too low. If the brightness is at or near 0 you might have VoiceOver's Screen Curtain on. Screen Curtain turns the screen conpletely black for privacy or to save battery. Tapping the screen 3 times with 3 fingers toggles Screen Curtain on and off. That can be done at any time that VoiceOver is on.

When done adjusting the settings use the back gesture to close Control Center and return to the app.

If you intend to play the video in the field ministry adding it to favorites can make the process go far more smoothly. Even if I have a video I am intending to play in Favorites I often start the video ahead of time and immediately pause it using a 2 finger double tap. I then double tap the "Back 5 seconds" button. That means the video is ready to start at the beginning at a seconds notice. All I need to do is repeat the 2 finger double tap to start playback.

VoiceOver has a bad habit of talking over videos if some precautions aren't taken.

I usually do not mute Voiceover speech, but that is an option. If the video is all ready to go with the 2 finger double tap, no Voiceover feedback is really needed, so a 3 finger double tap can be used to turn off speech but leave Voiceover running. If the video doesn't play as expected you can quickly use the 3 finger double tap to restore speech and figure out what's happening.

Now that there are gestures for controlling playback in JW Library you might consider turning Voiceover off. That is a bit dangerous. It is awfully easy to touch the wrong place in the wrong way and do something you didn't want to do. It also takes longer to turn Voiceover on or off than it does to mute speech.

My preference is to be ready to silence Voiceover only if it starts blabbing. Being ready to touch the screen with 2 fingers is simple enough and does the job in most cases. That gesture is for pausing and resuming what Voiceover has started to say.

I have taken precautions to make Voiceover not yell much louder than the video. On my iPad, which is my public video showing device, Voiceover volume is set at about 60% instead of the 85% on my phone. That means the volume that is set with the volume buttons can be turned up loud enough for the video to be heard well enough, without Voiceover trying to deafen me.

Another cause of VoiceOver making the audio hard to hear is called Audio Ducking. Its purpose is to prevent VoiceOver from being drowned out by some playing media which might prevent you from operating your device. YouTube's bad behavior is an excellent example. In JW library's well-behaved media player, audio ducking is likely to be more of a problem than a solution.

To turn off or on audio ducking: Open Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver. You can also ask Siri to "open VoiceOver Settings."

Inside the VoiceOver settings find the Audio button and double tap it.

Swipe right until you find Audio Ducking. Double tap it to toggle the setting.

Audio ducking can also be set in an activity for a specific app. However, explaining how to do that is beyond the scope of this guide.

Captions

I like to have captions displayed for any videos I play. I heard a statistic that indicated that more than 50% of people find they sometimes need subtitles on to supliment their understanding of the words spoken in videos.

To turn on captions for a video you are playing in JW Library: Pause playback, then activate the Settings button in the media player. It is the last button in the bottom right corner.

Activate the Subtitles button. for the videos I tested I found Off and English buttons. I chose English.

Now Activate the Done button to return to the video playback screen and resume playing the video.

If VoiceOver starts to blab every word that is spoken, it is set to output subtitles or captions in speech. There is an easy fix.

Open Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver. You can also ask Siri to "open VoiceOver Settings."

Find and double tap the Verbosity button.

The setting you need is the very last setting in the Verbosity settings. So either tap the bottom of the screen with 4 fingers, or scroll all the way to the end.

VoiceOver should say, "Determines how closed captions + SDH are output during media playback."

Swipe left once to find the Media Descriptions button. It will be set to Off, Speech, or Braille.

Double tap the button if it is set to speech, then select either Off or Braille to keep VoiceOver mercifully quiet.

Play Video Audio Only

As a blind person you may want to "watch" a video by just listening to it with the screen locked so as to not bump buttons or use more battery power than necessary. This is completely possible by double tapping the Picture in Picture button that is in the top left corner of the screen when a video is playing.

The video controls will be shrunken down to a small strip at the top of the screen on an iPhone. On an iPad the video controls will be in the top right corner of the screen.

Once a video is playing with picture in Picture on, you can lock the screen and it will continue playing. When the screen is unlocked Voiceover Magic Tap will play and pause it as usual. In fact you can accidentally make the video controls disappear completely and only be able to play and pause using that 2 finger double tap.

Reading Text in Videos

You might wonder if there is a way to read the text that you know is shown in some videos, and quite annoyingly never spoken. You're left wondering things like: What questions? How can i answer questions if I never hear them? Who is talking? What was that scripture reference? Etc. Etc.

The answer is. Sometimes.

The feature that sometimes makes it possible to read text from videos is Voiceover recognition. It usually works great for still images, but videos are a different story.

The first thing to know is that it requires an iPad or iPhone with an A12 or later processor. You will know your device can't do it if the option isn't available in VoiceOver settings.

Open Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver. You can also ask Siri to "open VoiceOver Settings."

Find and Double tap Voiceover Recognition.

Enable Screen Recognition and Text Recognition.

Use the Back gesture or button.

Now swipe right until you find Rotor and double tap.

Find Screen Recognition and double tap it if it is not selected.

You may also want to select Image recognition. When done use the Back gesture or button.

Now Voiceover has the necessary features enabled in its settings.

When playing a video with text you want to read you will have to guess when it appears on the screen. Pause the video at that point.

Turn your VoiceOver rotor to Screen Recognition and swipe down to turn it on.

Note: It is very important to keep Screen Recognition off until it is needed, because it breaks the functionality of most things instead of helping. Only turn it on to try to identify unlabeled controls and text in videos, or to try to use inaccessible apps. Turn it back off when you are finished with that task.

Explore the screen with your finger to see if there is any text Voiceover will now read. If not, go back a little in the video and resume playback for some seconds. Pause it and try to explore the screen for text again.

Unfortunately, it simply won't work a lot of the time.