RE: Question on Timed Text Markup Language (TTML)

Yes, sorry Glenn…

I agree there is no intrinsic preference in TTML… but I believe a bias (towards a presentation usage) has occurred in subtitling formats that are based on TTML (SMPTE-TT, EBU-TT etc).
I think Richard raises a valid point however, in that examples (perhaps an appendix in 1.1 or 2.0) indicating alternate strategies (and possibly the advantages / disadvantages of each) would be useful.

Best regards,
John

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From: Glenn Adams [mailto:glenn@skynav.com]
Sent: 03 July 2013 13:21
To: John Birch
Cc: David Ronca; public-tt@w3.org
Subject: Re: Question on Timed Text Markup Language (TTML)


On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 3:33 AM, John Birch <John.Birch@screensystems.tv<mailto:John.Birch@screensystems.tv>> wrote:
Hi David, Richard,

Yes, this is an interesting aspect of TTML.

TTML uses the <p> element from a presentation perspective. At any point in time, the <p> elements hold the content that is active at that moment.

Actually, I have to disagree with John on this point. TTML does not favor either presentation or semantic usage. It is up to the author to choose their intended usage, and it has been shown that the same timing in this example can be accomplished within a single <p/>.


However, from a narrative perspective it would be preferable that the <p> element would hold content that is related from a narrative structure perspective.
This is something that I would hope we can embrace in EBU-TT Part 5. In Part 5 it is possible that the timing may be subservient to the narrative… i.e. the timing might be considered a notation against a structured text content rather than having the timing dominate the document as in current TTML implementations.

Best regards,
John

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From: David Ronca [mailto:dronca@netflix.com<mailto:dronca@netflix.com>]
Sent: 03 July 2013 08:32
To: public-tt@w3.org<mailto:public-tt@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Question on Timed Text Markup Language (TTML)

The purpose of captioning is to align the text with the spoken dialog and the video.  The paragraph is split across multiple 'p' elements presumably because that is how it aligns with the spoken dialog.  Even sentences are split.  Consider the sentence "Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest...fairest of all beings." in the opening of FOTR.  If I remember the narration timing correctly (deliberate pauses), the split might look something like this:

<p> Three were given to the Elves</p>
<p> immortal,</p>
<p> wisest...</p>
<p>fairest of all beings.</p>

David

On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 12:10 AM, Thierry MICHEL <tmichel@w3.org<mailto:tmichel@w3.org>> wrote:
Could someone help Richard here ?

Thanks.


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Question on Timed Text Markup Language (TTML)
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2013 12:37:07 +0000
From: Richard, Francois <francois.richard@hp.com<mailto:francois.richard@hp.com>>


I work for Hewlett-Packard (actually based in Grenoble) and my group charter is to deploy Translation tools and technologies within HP.
We recently received some TTML files that we need to process through our TMS  (Translation management system). I had a look at it and I am bit surprised by the use of paragraph element. In the sample file I received (see snippet below), the notion of linguistic "paragraph" is not preserved, resulting in what could considered as concatenation or artificial split of grammatical sentences:
        <p begin='00:00:02.130' end='00:00:04.290' style="4">The print industry clearly is shrinking</p>
        <p begin='00:00:04.290' end='00:00:06.310' style="4">and shrinking substantially.</p>

I checked http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-ttaf1-dfxp-20130131/ and I am surprised to see that it is there too:

    <p xml:id="subtitle1" begin="0.76s" end="3.45s">
      It seems a paradox, does it not,
    </p>
    <p xml:id="subtitle2" begin="5.0s" end="10.0s">
      that the image formed on<br/>
      the Retina should be inverted?
    </p>

Is this done on purpose? I understand there is a need to support some "timing" information, but I do not understand why defining these attributes at the <p> element level, forcing grammatical sentences to be split across multiple "paragraphs"....
Can you help?

François Richard
Globalization Tec Lead
Digital Publishing and Operations

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