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 Thursday, 16 December 2010 20:56:06 UTC