RE: Support for advanced caption features (inc rollup)

thanks for that christian. browser-based viewing is important. we really need ubiquituous browser support for:

- HTML5 text tracks that can render captions and subtitles in-page, in full screen mode, and across outputs like airplay
- handle popular formats like webVTT and SMPTE-TT (and even possibly CEA-608 as SCC files)
- faithfully handle important closed captioning authoring styles such as rollups and split captions.

we are going to have a very fractured set of implementations until browsers can supply these core functions.

-glenn



Glenn Goldstein | Vice President, Media Technology Strategy | VIACOM
glenng@mtvi.com | 212-846-3210 | 1515 Broadway, New York NY 10036

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Vogler [mailto:christian.vogler@gallaudet.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2012 3:56 PM
To: Ian Hickson
Cc: Silvia Pfeiffer; public-texttracks@w3.org; Loretta Guarino Reid
Subject: Re: Support for advanced caption features (inc rollup)

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 21:02:00 UTC