RE: Accessibility of <audio> and <video>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-html-request@w3.org [mailto:public-html-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Ian Hickson
> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 5:19 AM
> To: Jim Jewett
> Cc: HTML WG
> Subject: Re: Accessibility of <audio> and <video>
> 
> Accessible video is too important to allow it to be left up to some
> bolt-on fallback features in HTML. We have to have features that are
> embedded right at the video resource level, so that users never lose
> these
> aids even when they save the video files separately and reuse them.

This is a good, concise statement that makes a ton of sense to me. I agree
that the video and audio tracks are capable of providing much more (and
richer) accessibility data than HTML. I also agree that it is important that
the accessibility information "travel" with the multimedia. At the same
time, I think that it is important that publishers and authors have the
ability to specify accessibility data within the HTML, for the (many)
occasions where the source material lacks it, and the person generating the
HTML does not have the ability to edit the source material. I am also
attracted by the idea of some sort of lightweight mechanism in HTML for
this, simply so that it is easier for UAs (particularly those who may not
necessarily have every codec under the sun available...) to get the
accessibility information.

J.Ja

Received on Wednesday, 15 October 2008 12:32:32 UTC