Re: Support for advanced caption features (inc rollup)

I also would like to add on general principe:

In the U.S., and unlike most of the rest of the world, access for people
with disabilities is considered a civil right. The CVAA reflects this - the
expectation is that people with disabilities can enjoy their video
programming in a manner functionally equivalent to the non-disabled world.
The class of devices and software covered by the captioning requirements is
intentionally broad. Trying to ridicule this by pulling up seemingly absurd
arguments isn't going to get anywhere - if anything at all, it reinforces
the view that the needs of people with disabilities are not being taken
seriously.

If you can do it, then the expectation is that so can we. It's that simple.

It's not any more acceptable to make concessions in the display of captions
that it is acceptable for the hearing world to be saddled with a player
without a volume control. Or being saddled with mono audio only, rather
than 5.1 surround and other more advanced audio setups.

As far as roll-up captions are concerned, I understand that we have a
difference in philosophy. I understand and respect that. At the same time,
where such philosophical differences get in the way of accessibility, it's
not possible just to back off.

WebVTT is likely to be implemented universally across the major web
browsers, and thus offering captions taken from TV programming on WebVTT is
the path of least resistance for video distributors, especially with the
excellent document that is being prepared by Silvia and others on
conversion between CEA-608-style captions and WebVTT. Regions are the one
major outstanding issue that prevent this from happening. I don't think it
makes sense for any major browser implementer to implement yet something
else when WebVTT is already so close - and Google and Apple supporting the
region proposal seems to bolster this argument. I don't think anyone wants
to see WebVTT fragmentation, so ...

I also have to agree with people who say there are more use cases for
regions than just the straightforward conversion of TV captions in the U.S.
I'm not going to rehash the previous discussions on the list about these;
other to note that they are there.

And WebVTT also offers a path forward for substantially better captions
than what we currently have on TV once we make progress in that area (which
is currently purely voluntary). I'll be happy to follow up on this and work
on guidelines for making the leap toward substantially better caption
quality during the conversion to Internet programming, but IMHO that's
something for the medium to long term - and right now distributors can't
actually be compelled to use these guidelines, rather than throwing up
their hands and asserting that broadcasting live captions on the Internet
is burdensome, due to the absence of a straightforward conversion path.

Christian



On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 7:53 PM, Christian Vogler <
christian.vogler@gallaudet.edu> wrote:

>
> Comments inline:
>
> On Dec 11, 2012 7:34 PM, "Ian Hickson" <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
>
> > > when the live programming requirements kick in. (Section 203 doesn't
> > > kick in until 2014, so there's some time left for web browsers,
> though.)
> >
> > Wait, what are these new requirements we're now talking about?
>
> At present only prerecorded TV shows on the internet need to be captioned.
> Live programming is exempt until March 30 next year.
>
> > The requirements in the CFR suggests it has to be explicitly marked up.
> > (Admittedly, the requirements are _incredibly_ vague, so I don't know if
> > that's what was intended. As a whole, I'm rather disappointed my tax
> > dollars are being spent on such work. These regulations are terrible.
> They
> > totally misunderstand how the Web works, they have entirely inappropriate
> > requirements, etc.)
>
> Now,  this is projecting. Can you do us a favor and assume for a second
> that the people involved with this knew what they are doing?  The deaf and
> hoh know their use cases,  and there were people with a strong technical
> background involved as well (including deaf people with a strong tech
> background). The rules aren't vague. If they seem vague, it might make
> sense to talk to legal counsel about it to clarify. But dismissing the
> needs of the consumers who had to fight very hard for access to captioning
> on the internet is a bit insulting.
>
> Christian
>
> >
> > --
> > Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
> > http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
> > Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
>
>


-- 
Christian Vogler, PhD
Director, Technology Access Program
Department of Communication Studies
SLCC 1116
Gallaudet University
http://tap.gallaudet.edu/
VP: 202-250-2795