- From: Christian Vogler <christian.vogler@gallaudet.edu>
- Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 15:56:21 -0500
- To: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Cc: Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com>, public-texttracks@w3.org, Loretta Guarino Reid <lorettaguarino@google.com>
On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 3:38 PM, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote: > On Wed, 5 Dec 2012, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote: >> On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 7:16 AM, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote: >> > On Wed, 5 Dec 2012, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote: >> > > >> > > (1) We (YouTube) are required to support these features in the US >> > > (per CVAA). >> > >> > I'm no lawyer, but I disagree with your interpretation of the relevant >> > requirements. >> >> It was not my interpretation - I was given this by YouTube. > > I don't recommend blindly accepting this kind of direction without being > very clear that it is in fact needed, given the impact on the Web. As an engineer, I am not a lawyer, either, but I've been around the ones that wrote large portions of the CVAA, the implementation, and the one who represented deaf and hard of hearing consumers during the rulemaking progress to know that it is not a matter of *if* the web browser use case is covered. The only ambiguity is whether it falls under Section 202 or 203, and all that the ambiguity affects is the timeline. This isn't a hypothetical scenario, by the way. On mobile devices there currently is absolutely no way to display closed captions for streaming web videos, even the ones that are required to be captioned, because of the lack of implementation in browsers. There are some hacks like Videojs, but they are (a) not reliable, and (b) don't work in fullscreen mode. And streaming video through the browser is a pretty big use case, judging by the success of Hulu, Netflix, and the likes, let alone YouTube. If WebVTT can't step up, this means continued use of Flash, Silverlight, custom apps, or a schism in the implementation of captioning on browsers. As an engineer, I am pretty sure that the latter isn't something we want to see. Christian -- Christian Vogler, PhD Director, Technology Access Program Department of Communication Studies SLCC 1116 Gallaudet University http://tap.gallaudet.edu/ VP: 202-250-2795
Received on Tuesday, 4 December 2012 20:56:46 UTC