Re: Forwarding Our Comparison [Was: Media Gaps Document--36 Hour Consensus Call]

Glad it's on its way.  By the way, I spoke this morning with a contact at an I-cannot-name-it major American network, who told me that they're rolling out TTML-captioned videos on their Web site beginning in January.

Geoff/NCAM


On 12/17/10 12:44 PM, "Janina Sajka" <janina@rednote.net> wrote:

It appears we have used our 36-hour consensus call very productively.
Thanks to all, and especially to Geoff, for helping drive this summary
to an appropriate, sharable conclusion. I will now announce this
document to the WG.

Janina

Silvia Pfeiffer writes:
> 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)
> >>
> >>
> >>

--

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)