Re: WebVTT feedback

On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 8:19 PM, Silvia Pfeiffer
<silviapfeiffer1@gmail.com>wrote:

> I've somewhat lost track of what we are arguing about on this thread
> (it started off with may topics). I thought the introduction of script
> detection was suggested as a solution for automatically switching
> between identified languages, i.e. to avoid the introduction of a
> <lang> elements for VTT (which would be converted into <span lang=en>
> in HTML).
>

I don't think it was meant as a replacement for <lang>.  It can't be, both
for the reasons you give (language detection is a broader problem than
script detection) and because heuristics will always get some cases wrong.

I agree that <lang> is needed in WebVTT, with or without script/language
heuristics.

In the vein of this, while I don't mind having automated script
> detection for VTT files as an advanced feature, I think a video player
> should not be expected to implement complex script detection just so
> we can support mixed language cues.


If it's specced for WebVTT, I'd expect it to be a requirement.  Web formats
shouldn't have optional features.  However, it's probably much easier to
implement script detection mechanically based on a spec than to build one
from scratch.

-- 
Glenn Maynard