Re: [media] Moving forward with captions / subtitles

On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 6:34 PM, Philip Jägenstedt <philipj@opera.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:14:35 +0800, Eric Carlson <eric.carlson@apple.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Feb 14, 2010, at 10:35 PM, Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> <trackgroup role="subtitles">
>>>  <track src="subtitles.en.srt" lang="en">
>>>  <track src="subtitles.sv.srt" lang="sv">
>>>  <track src="subtitles.fr.srt" lang="fr">
>>>  <track src="subtitles.zh.srt" lang="zh">
>>> </trackgroup>
>>> <trackgroup role="captions">
>>>  <track src="captions.en.srt" lang="en">
>>>  <track src="captions.sv.srt" lang="sv">
>>>  <track src="captions.fr.srt" lang="fr">
>>>  <track src="captions.zh.srt" lang="zh">
>>> </trackgroup>
>>>
>>> role="" isn't what makes the tracks alternative, it's that they are in
>>> the same <trackgroup>. If <trackgroup> isn't used then all tracks are in the
>>> same implicit group and are mutually exclusive.
>>>
>>  I see that now, though I think it is much less clear ;-)
>>
>>  "track" has a well defined meaning in the context of media files, as a
>> source of a particular type of media data. This is really what and it is
>> what you are calling "trackgroup" here.
>
> I don't recognize this usage. I would call each individual audio or video
> stream a separate track, e.g. I talk about the "English audio track" or the
> "commentary track". If I used "track" to describe text at all it would be
> "French subtitle track" and the "Swedish subtitle track", certainly not
> describing all subtitles collectively as a track.

I think I agree with Philip's use of the word "track". These are all
"virtual tracks" and they could become active at any time, just like
all available tracks inside a media resource can be turned on and off.
But I am not sure it is enough reason for me to refrain from re-using
<source> which has such a lot of overlap with the inner element that
we are after. But at least I now understand where Philip came from.
Hmmm... I'm going to sleep over this.

Cheers,
Silvia.

Received on Monday, 15 February 2010 11:32:50 UTC