Re: Several considerations on implementing WebVTT for media players

After watching examples, I am beginning to understand why some people who work in captions exhibit…interesting character traits. :-)

On Aug 10, 2012, at 5:30 , Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 6:51 PM, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> OK, thanks, I probably need a visual example to help me understand.
>> 
>> 
>> (Oddly, I couldn't find many examples of this on YouTube, even though it's
>> commonplace in fansubs.  Links contain cheesy music.)
>> 
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbUxbsiUOmU
>> 
>> A huge number of fansubs do that.  Personally I can't stand it--subtitles
>> should be discreet, not intentionally draw attention away from the
>> video!--but it can also be used for actual karaoke.
>> 
>> People also like to apply really obnox^W^Wheavily animated effects;
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2BTuxX9IVs is commonplace with SSA.
>> 
> 
> While we're on examples: here's one that uses both rollup and paint-on
> to provide Karaoke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsVQbwQHPjg !
> 
> Silvia.
>> Roll-up is something else.  Carlos is talking about animated karaoke, which
>> I don't think is currently possible with WebVTT (no big loss in my opinion).
> 
> Actually, the timestamps allow for Karaoke markup IIUC.
> 
> A cue such something like the following can work:
> 
> --> STYLE
> ::cue(:before) {
>  color: red;
> }
> ::cue(:after) {
>  color: grey;
> }
> 
> 1
> 00:00:00.000 --> 00:01:00.000
> Yesterday <00:00:10.000> all <00:00:15.000> my <00:00:20.000> trouble
> <00:00:25.000> seemed <00:00:30.000> ...
> 
> 
> Right now, you need that CSS to be interpreted by a Web browser. But I
> agree with Carlos that we need a solution that is independent of the
> Web and provides the styling as part of the WebVTT file:
> https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=15023 .

I think this is right;  you don't need a web browser, you need (enough) CSS to handle this case.  Indeed, you could have before and after styles that change font size, and have CSS transitions that animate the changes, and so on.  Whether such effects are palatable I am clearly unworthy to judge.

Indeed, I am not at all sure that the captions etc. SHOULD 'share a CSS environment' with the page.


David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Friday, 10 August 2012 17:46:58 UTC