Re: HTML 5, SMIL, Video

On 2/22/10 4:03 AM, "Philip Jägenstedt" <philipj@opera.com> wrote:

On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:18:00 +0800, John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>
wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Earlier Silvia asked if others would be responding.  I've been following
> this thread closely and have some thoughts and opinions to add to the
> discussion.
>
>
> Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
>>
>>
>> I think this is actually a fair summary and applies to both smilText
>> and
>> DFXP with the modification "don't think we'll implement them in the
>> immediate future". Other implementors may feel differently.
>
> Is this to indicate that Opera will likely not support DFXP (or some
> variant
> there-of) in the immediate future? I think that support of some form of
> marked up transcript beyond SRT will be a requirement in the final
> recommendation, but that is but my opinion at this time.

It means that I hope we will support SRT first and a (1) fuller format
after that. I don't really have a favorite format in that category, as I
don't know a lot about them to begin with.

GF:  It's the "after that" part of this statement that makes me nervous.



>> I think we should have one extremely simple format like SRT right now
>> and
>> eventually one on the far other end of the scale that can handle all
>> current use cases and is extensible for the future in some fashion.
>
> I think that "eventually" will be a lot closer than you might be giving
> it
> credit for. I am already producing a rudimentary DFXP file from the
> Stanford
> Captioning system - the file being auto-generated from accurate
> transcription text files.  Since machines can generate XML marked files
> as
> easily as SRT, the question of 'ease of authoring' will likely become
> moot
> sooner than later. Given the obvious benefits of XML marked files w.r.t.
> the
> styling, accessibility, etc. there will likely be a move towards a richer
> markup of the transcripts early on, especially for large commercial
> producers. (Impending legislation such as H.R. 3101 will have a huge
> impact
> in the US on advancing this if/when passed into law)

The time-consuming part isn't authoring but implementation. DFXP is quite
big and for there to be any advantage over SRT the styling needs to be
supported. I don't want to exaggerate the difficulty, but years before
there are implementations in several browsers really doesn't seem
unreasonable. Only if all browser vendors agree to make format X high
priority and spend a lot of resources on it will things be any different.

GF:  I don't doubt that the implementation is difficult.  But if the simple implementation is given priority, how likely is it that the complex implementation will follow?  Is it likely that Opera would make a high-priority commitment to the complex implementation?   Would other vendors represented on this list be able to make a similar commitment?