[Bug 10642] No alternative text description for video key frame (poster)

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10642

--- Comment #68 from John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu> 2010-11-12 22:58:39 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #66)
> Agree with David; IMO the poster is only an interstitial element at best.
> Accessibility for the video element is best done through subtitling, linked
> transcripts, etc.

Sorry Frank, but must disagree.

Given the fact that the author can specify *any* image as a poster frame image,
it becomes content in-and-of-itself: there is no mandate or technical means to
ensure that the image used is a frame from the video, or that it even directly
relates to the video. 

It may be *presumed* that this would be the normal way that authors would use a
poster frame image (http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10642#c22),
but there is no practical or programmatic means of ensuring this: consider a
Film Festival site, where each film's "poster" would be a branding exercise for
the Festival and have nothing to do with the film itself - the image might even
include (yech) text... the point is, we have no idea *what* kind of image will
be used here, and further have no way of 'policing' how a poster image will be
used.

As such, the image used as the poster frame requires a means of directly
linking the 'alternative text' for that image to the image.

Silvia Pfeiffer suggested:
> All that would be required is an extra sentence to encourage users to
> explain the poster content as part of the alternative text of the video
> element. (http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10642#c62)

Once again, this presumes that the image is directly related to the video, a
presumption we should not be making.

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Received on Friday, 12 November 2010 22:58:42 UTC