Re: Media Gaps Document--36 Hour Consensus Call

Thanks for doing the edits - I think it's fair now. Am travelling today.

Cheers,
Silvia

Sent from my iPhone

On 17/12/2010, at 10:48 AM, Geoff Freed <geoff_freed@wgbh.org> wrote:

> 
> take a look at the doc now-- i put in your language, plus added a reference to SMPTE-TT in the TTML column.
> 
> geoff
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: Silvia Pfeiffer [silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 3:55 PM
> To: Geoff Freed
> Cc: Janina Sajka; HTML Accessibility Task Force; John Foliot; Eric Carlson; Sean Hayes; Frank Olivier
> Subject: Re: Media Gaps Document--36 Hour Consensus Call
> 
> Note that I also objected to the restriction "on the Web" because I
> believe that is also an unfair characterisation. To be completely
> fair, we have to say for both formats:
> 
> "Adopted by several major commercial content producers,
> streaming-media and internet-communication providers; integrated into
> current commercial tool chains as well as free authoring tools."
> 
> We may give it a caveat that in broadcasting TTML is a new format that
> is starting to see wider adoption while SRT has a larger focus on the
> Web. Excluding TTML from the Web or SRT from commercial content is
> where I saw the problem.
> 
> Regards,
> Silvia.
> 
> On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 3:38 AM, Geoff Freed <geoff_freed@wgbh.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I took another look and noted that we say that TTML is in “active use,” so i
>> changed the SRT description to use the same language.  See
>> http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/HTML/wiki/TextFormat_Comparison_Overview .
>> However, as I said earlier, I won’t argue if anyone else feels strongly
>> about using “widely adopted.”
>> 
>> Geoff/NCAM
>> 
>> 
>> On 12/16/10 10:49 AM, "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Our purpose during the telecon was to find some phrase that would convey
>> a significant adoption level for SRT. It was felt that noting adoption
>> of TTML should, in fairness, have some parallel indication for SRT.
>> 
>> 
>> If there's a better way to do that, a better phrasing, this is a good
>> time to indicate, as accurately and nonprejudicially as we can what the
>> correct representation of adoption for both TTML and SRT is. At the
>> moment, I don't have a better suggestion than reinserting "widely
>> adopted." But, there may be a better way, and we should think of that
>> over the next hours.
>> 
>> Anyone with a suggestion?
>> 
>> Janina
>> 
>> 
>> Geoff Freed writes:
>>> 
>>> I'm not going to raise a huge fuss or open a new debate over this, but
>>> merely wanted to point out that "widely used" is not an objective way to
>>> quantify usage.  But just for the sake of argument, it isn't accurate to
>>> search only for the TTML extension as a way to determine usage of the format
>>> because that extension is relatively new.  Remember, TTML was called DFXP
>>> for several years before the name was changed, and filename.dfxp,
>>> filename.dfxp.xml or filename.xml (and perhaps others) have all been used to
>>> identify DFXP/TTML caption files.
>>> 
>>> Other points to consider:  the BBC has been providing TTML captions on its
>>> on-line offerings since 2008- using filename.xml- so that probably adds up
>>> to thousands of caption files right there.  And although I am unable to name
>>> names, I can say that major broadcast and Web-based video-streaming entities
>>> are now beginning to adopt TTML as their caption-display format.  Finally,
>>> SMPTE has completed its work on SMPTE-TT (see
>>> https://store.smpte.org/SearchResults.asp?Search=2052&Extensive_Search=Y&Submit=Search),
>>> which is the standard for converting CEA-608 caption data for use on the
>>> Web.  SMPTE-TT is based on TTML.  This alone is probably going to result in
>>> the creation of thousands of new TTML-based caption files in the
>>> not-too-distant future.
>>> 
>>> I don't think we need to spend time counting caption files and, again, I
>>> don't think it's necessary to get into a big debate over this.  I won't
>>> object if you re-insert "widely used" into the requirements doc.  It just
>>> doesn't seem to me that the term is appropriate.
>>> 
>>> Geoff/NCAM
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 12/16/10 1:45 AM, "Silvia Pfeiffer" <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 5:41 PM, Silvia Pfeiffer
>>> <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 4:56 PM, John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> Eric Carlson wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Dec 15, 2010, at 7:13 PM, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think "widely used" was a fair assessment for SRT. All
>>>>>>> professional
>>>>>>> entities that I've known that use other formats are usually also
>>>>>>> capable of using SRT because it's so simple. Just saying "is
>>>>>>> implemented in some sectors of the Web-development community" is
>>>>>>> unfair because there are many professional entities that use it,
>>>>>>> too.
>>>>>>> They make no big fuss about it, but they support it. SRT support is
>>>>>>> more commonly found than TTML and I would therefore object to any
>>>>>>> representation that tries to imply the opposite.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I agree! SRT is one of the formats that YouTube recommends people use
>>>>>> when uploading captions
>>>>>> that are not already formatted [1]:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If you do not have formatted caption data, such as a transcript that
>>>>> does
>>>>>> not have timing data, we recommend using SubRip (*.SRT)
>>>>> or SubViewer (*.SUB)
>>>>>> for generating formatted captions.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Although I have complained to the HTML WG Chairs in the past about the
>>>>> use
>>>>> of vague metrics when it comes to measurement, I think that here
>>>>> 'widely
>>>>> used' does represent a fairly accurate assessment of SRT's usage. It's
>>>>> usage in the fan-sub community for sub-titling is also well known,
>>>>> although getting a handle on quantity metrics is difficult. Unless
>>>>> there
>>>>> is strong push-back I believe we are best served by retaining that
>>>>> phrase
>>>>> here.
>>>>> 
>>>>> My $0.02 Canadian
>>>>> 
>>>>> JF
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> While it's only indicative, a Google search for filetype:srt provides
>>>> 264,000 results while filetype:ttml provides 713 results.
>>>> 
>>>> Neither of these numbers mean much because the majority of these files
>>>> will not live on the 'net. But they are indicative and quantitative.
>>> 
>>> Actually - just looking at the ttml files - they are all not Timed
>>> Text ML files. Doesn't seem like this number means much.
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Silvia.
>>> 
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> Janina Sajka,   Phone:  +1.443.300.2200
>>                sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
>> 
>> Chair, Open Accessibility       janina@a11y.org
>> Linux Foundation                http://a11y.org
>> 
>> Chair, Protocols & Formats
>> Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
>> World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
>> 
>> 
>>

Received on Friday, 17 December 2010 05:35:05 UTC