Re: Support for advanced caption features (inc rollup)

> This is interesting phrasing. It seems to imply that a browser vendor
> isn't covered by this unless they publish TV content, which rather seems
> to misunderstand how the Internet works (in that there's no reason the
> client provider and the publisher be related, and no reason the client
> would handle TV content any differently than anything else).

I think there might be a misunderstanding here.

Let me give an analog to TV first.

There are two parts to making captioning work. First, the TV station
actually has to send them out in some standard format, and second, the
TV needs to have the necessary hardware and software to display the
captions as sent out by the station.

The CVAA has the equivalent on the Internet. Section 202 (which we
didn't discuss or cite in detail yet because it doesn't have much
direct bearing on web browser implementation) is basically all about
ensuring that the video distributors send the captions along with the
video. Basically it says: if you distribute TV programming on the
Internet, you must also send the closed captions, and the software or
hardware that you provide to users for viewing your programming must
display those captions.

Section 203 is the equivalent of TVs supporting the display of closed
captions. The intent (and a very powerful one at that) is that any
device or software distributed with hardware that is capable of
playing back video programming must support the rendering of closed
captions. It's there to free the deaf and hard of hearing consumers
from hunting for specialized equipment or software to make video
programming accessible. That has nothing to do with whether the
manufacturer of the hardware or software distributes TV content. It's
far more general than that, and is codified in the above-cited CFR.
And that's where the browsers come in.

Christian

Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2012 23:53:57 UTC