Re: Support for advanced caption features (inc rollup)

On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 9:56 PM, Christian Vogler
<christian.vogler@gallaudet.edu> wrote:
> 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.

What we need for mobile captioning in general is <track>/VTT support
on iOS and Android browsers. It's not a matter of spec, but
implementation. Given that both Chrome and Safari on desktops have
<track>/VTT support, I hope their mobile versions will soon see it
too.

I agree with you this is a big omission at present; IMO a far bigger
priority than roll-up captions (which countries like the Netherlands
happily live without - see e.g.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuGE7qZAcHM).

Received on Wednesday, 5 December 2012 08:18:47 UTC