- From: Lachlan Hunt <lachlan.hunt@lachy.id.au>
- Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:38:07 +1000
- To: HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
Smylers wrote: > Ben Boyle writes: >> [Lachlan Hunt writes:] >>> In regards to using longdesc for videos, that seems like it would >>> encourage the use of "full multimedia text alternatives". Several >>> accessibility experts, including Joe Clark, don't approve of such >>> things for videos. Instead, they advocate that videos should be >>> made accessibile through the use of things like captions and audio >>> descriptions. >> >> They absolutely should, but alternatives are still useful. >> Particularly for people with limited bandwidth, which you know remains >> an issue in Australia ;) > > And also for people browsing with, say, Lynx. They can launch the video in an external application. > Or people who don't have an appropriate video-playing plug-in for > their browser (perhaps because the video is in a proprietory format > from a different platform). You're confusing accessibility, which is about catering for people with disabilities, with interoperability, which is about making formats that work on different platforms, devices and/or software. While the issues are sometimes related, arguing that something is inaccessible because some users don't posses the right equipment is wrong. It'd be like arguing that DVDs are inaccessible because a few people still only have VHS. BTW, DVDs don't get sold with books describing the entire film for those who can't watch it. They do, however, get produced with captions, subtitles and sometimes audio descriptions. Why should video on the web be any different? -- Lachlan Hunt http://lachy.id.au/
Received on Thursday, 28 June 2007 05:38:24 UTC