[Bug 12964] New: <video>: Declarative linking of full-text transcripts to video and audio elements

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=12964

           Summary: <video>: Declarative linking of full-text transcripts
                    to video and audio elements
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org


Full-text non-timed transcripts of audio or video are the only means for some
users to consume audio or video content, be it e.g. that they are deaf-blind,
or are on a low bandwidth connection, in a text-only browser, or would simply
prefer to scan the transcript over spending the time watching the a/v resource.

Video publishers that want to publish such full-text transcripts with their
video content typically provide a separate resource with that transcript, since
it tends to be a lengthy piece of content and it is Web content in its own
right. (Note that for on-page content we already have @aria-describedby, so I
am only interested in this off-page use case.)


There are two ways in which video publishers typically provide the link to an
off-page transcript: either in a URL somewhere underneath the video element, or
as a user interface element to click to from within the video element.

The transcript link in both these cases is not directly part of the video's
markup, even if in the second display case the Web developer has made the
transcript at least visually a part of the video.

There are reasons to actually make a link to a transcript a native part of the
video (and audio) element:

* discoverability: blind users that reach a video element currently need to
search other elements on the page to find the link to the full-text transcript;
if it was a native part of the element, its presence could be announced as the
user discovers the video

* programmatic use: neither screen readers nor crawlers can currently identify
such distinct elements on the page as belonging to the video and providing text
that is a relevant placeholder for that element (e.g. a search engine can use
the transcript for indexing)

* design: most Web designers prefer not to have to put an extra element on
their Web page just to provide a link to a full-text transcript; if we make it
a native part of the audio/video element, we can put the link in the context
menu and Web developers don't have to design anything to make it available

* embedding: when video elements are embedded into other Web pages by copying
the video element markup, the link to the full-text transcript is lost unless
it is part of the video element markup


Thus the suggestion is to add a @transcript attribute to the &ltvideo> and
&lt;audio> elements with a URL as the value and a recommendation to UAs add the
link in the context menu for these elements or make it otherwise available
through the media element controls.

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Received on Thursday, 16 June 2011 02:05:36 UTC