{Minutes} TTWG Meeting 2021-05-13

Thanks all for attending today's TTWG meeting. Minutes can be found in HTML format at https://www.w3.org/2021/05/13-tt-minutes.html


There was a delayed start to the meeting because the Webex booking had been cancelled. I will send details of the replacement before our next call. Apologies for the confusion, and I hope nobody was excluded because of this. If you intended to join but were unable to, please let me know.

Those minutes in text format:

   [1]W3C

      [1] https://www.w3.org/


                Timed Text Working Group Teleconference

13 May 2021

   [2]Previous meeting. [3]Agenda. [4]IRC log.

      [2] https://www.w3.org/2021/04/29-tt-minutes.html

      [3] https://github.com/w3c/ttwg/issues/185

      [4] https://www.w3.org/2021/05/13-tt-irc


Attendees

   Present
          Atsushi, Chris_Needham, Cyril, Gary, Nigel, Pierre

   Regrets
          Rob_Smith

   Chair
          Gary, Nigel

   Scribe
          nigel

Contents

    1. [5]This meeting
    2. [6]Shear calculations and origin of coordinate system.
       w3c/ttml2#1199
    3. [7]Mention fingerprinting vectors in privacy
       considerations. w3c/ttml2#1189
    4. [8]WebVTT - Requirements-gathering for syntax changes to
       support unbounded cues, cue updating etc
    5. [9]Meeting close

Meeting minutes

  This meeting

   Nigel: Today we have a couple of TTML2 issues to circle back
   on, and an agenda item on WebVTT requirements gathering for
   possible syntax changes.
   … And in AOB, TPAC 2021
   … Is there any other business, or anything to make sure we
   cover?

   group: [no other business]

  Shear calculations and origin of coordinate system. w3c/ttml2#1199

   github: [10]https://github.com/w3c/ttml2/issues/1199


     [10] https://github.com/w3c/ttml2/issues/1199


   Cyril: The initial issue is about clarifying what happens.
   … I think we came up with a possible clarification for some
   writing mode.
   … We need to propose some text.

   Nigel: Yes, that's great, do that!

   Cyril: Okay I'll propose text maybe for next time.
   … The discussion veered a bit to how to map to CSS, which won't
   be solved easily.
   … But better documenting what we have is important for
   interoperability.

   Nigel: From [11]https://github.com/w3c/ttml2/issues/

   1199#issuecomment-802057127 I summarised that we need to know
   … what we want it to do. Do you think that's clear now?

     [11] https://github.com/w3c/ttml2/issues/1199#issuecomment-802057127


   Cyril: I think we said it does depend on the writing mode

   Pierre: I'm not sure about that actually
   … Clarifying the current text is a good idea.
   … I'm hesitating only because CSS was about to do something. Do
   we know if they are planning
   … to address it soon? It would be a shame if we come to a
   different conclusion from what they are planning to do.

   Cyril: Maybe we could say it's not defined in Horizontal
   writing mode, which we don't need for now.

   [12][css-font-4] oblique angle for vertical text with
   text-combine-upright #4818

     [12] https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/4818


   Nigel: I noticed today that the issue above got a useful
   comment 13 days ago.

   Pierre: Yes, but what that says is "to the side"

   Nigel: Yes, it's vertical for vertical text, i.e. in the inline
   direction, which some could consider "to the side"

   group: [amusement]

   Cyril: I can propose for the TTML spec an update that says the
   behaviour is undefined for anything
   … other than top-to-bottom, right-to-left, and that behaviour
   would match what CSS implementations do.
   … [thinks] Maybe the solution will be different for fontShear,
   lineShear and shear. I'll think about it.

   Nigel: Thank you.

   Pierre: Cyril, a bigger question is: today IMSC supports only
   blockShear. Is that really the right thing?

   Cyril: It's a difficult question. I can tell you that ideally
   what we would like at Netflix is the behaviour of fontShear,
   with vertical
   … and tate-chu-yoko and ruby being handled correctly, where
   correctly here is still subject to interpretation.
   … I think we understand that lineShear is complicated in terms
   of line layout and reflow, and blockShear is the simplest we
   came up with
   … in terms of implementation.

   Pierre: That's how it's done but it's not clear if that's
   right. It has the potential of overflowing.
   … It sounds like we don't have a answer there.

   Nigel: I'm surprised by your view Cyril, I thought lineShear
   would be the preferred option, as it is simpler for layout and
   retains the alignments.

   Cyril: But line lengths can change with lineShear.

   Nigel: I think that's blockShear.

   Pierre: For lineShear you can predict the line length in
   advance and layout once.
   … For blockShear you need to know the height of the block, but
   then there might be overflow causing a change to the block
   height.

   Cyril: Ok I thought that it was simpler, I need to think about
   it.
   … I know what we want to achieve with shear in subtitles, it's
   complex because of what is implemented.

   Pierre: I'm fairly sure we want lineShear, but we couldn't
   adopt it because of lack of implementation in CSS.

   Cyril: The difference between lineShear and fontShear is
   essentially that they're the same but if you combine glyphs
   before shear for tate-chu-yoko they come out the same.

   Nigel: What about ruby alignment?

   Pierre: The alignment changes - I have heard it argued both
   ways.

   Cyril: The difference is subtle, I wonder if we need to worry
   about it.

   Pierre: If tomorrow all browsers supported fontShear with the
   tate-chu-yoko hack then I suspect we'd use it,
   … rather than CSS shear. I don't disagree with you.
   … Treating tate-chu-yoko as a single glyph is kind of weird
   though.

   Pierre: I like your plan for vertical text to provide a
   clarification. That would be helpful, even if we
   … leave the rest undefined for now.

   SUMMARY: @cconcolato to propose text

  Mention fingerprinting vectors in privacy considerations.
  w3c/ttml2#1189

   github: [13]https://github.com/w3c/ttml2/issues/1189


     [13] https://github.com/w3c/ttml2/issues/1189


   Nigel: Just to note I opened a pull request for this yesterday.

  [14]Pull Request: Add further fingerprinting considerations
   w3c/ttml2#1231

     [14] https://github.com/w3c/ttml2/pull/1231


   Nigel: That's open for review, please take a look.
   … The original commenter, Jeffrey Yasskin, gave a thumbs-up to
   the analysis I did 2 weeks ago, and this pull request
   implements that.
   … I see Glenn has already approved it.
   … It'd be good to get this merged in our normal 2 week period
   if we can to get this done and dusted.

   SUMMARY: Group to review as per normal process

  WebVTT - Requirements-gathering for syntax changes to support
  unbounded cues, cue updating etc

   Chris: This is a use case and requirements gathering exercise
   for unbounded cues in WebVTT
   … specifically. It's been discussed here, and in the Media
   Timed Events Task Force that the MEIG is running.
   … We brought it to an IG meeting on Tuesday where we decided to
   do the use case and requirements work as part of the
   … Media Timed Events activity that we have, and then use the
   information that we gather there to help with design decisions
   … around support for unbounded cues in WebVTT.
   … To that end I created an initial (very initial) requirements
   use case document that we can use as a basis.

   <cpn> [15]https://github.com/w3c/media-and-entertainment/blob/

   master/media-timed-events/unbounded-cues.md

     [15] https://github.com/w3c/media-and-entertainment/blob/master/media-timed-events/unbounded-cues.md


   Chris: Link pasted above.
   … What I'm looking for in terms of use cases I think are the
   quite detailed use cases like the specific actions that we
   need.
   … For example, if I pick the WebVMT example, we can distil a
   lot of what Rob is looking for to the idea that we have timed
   measurements,
   … be it location or whatever, that are aligned to the video,
   and those get updated at points in time in the video, and he's
   choosing to
   … represent those as unbounded cues.
   … Then the application can receive and respond to those or in
   his case he does interpolation. I'm not sure if that level of
   detail matters
   … from the point of view of how it may affect the syntax.
   … We also have the use cases around captions that span multiple
   VTT documents, like in DASH or segmented media delivery in
   general.
   … I'm hoping we can gather those handful of use cases and
   capture and explain them, and make sure we have everything
   cover.
   … That leads us towards being able to consider how the syntax
   may need to change.
   … I include the backwards compatibility requirement in there.
   … All of those are captured in the document as it stands. There
   is a list of to-do comments to write some information.
   … I don't know if it is complete. I'm hoping that contributors
   will be able to help fill in the details.
   … I think Cyril, in the last meeting you mentioned that there's
   an MPEG document that talks about how this may be carried in
   MP4.

   Cyril: Yes, there was a proposal to update the carriage of
   WebVTT in MP4 for unbounded cues, but it was mentioned that
   since
   … there was no syntax for unbounded cues you could not carry
   them.
   … So the proposal was to remove the amendment to 14496-30, but
   the resolution of the comment
   … is currently "if there is a way to specify unbounded cues
   then here's how you deal with it". It's moving sand.

   Chris: The dependency is on us?

   Cyril: Yes

   Pierre: I've not been following this closely. Are we talking
   about unbounded cues in the file format, or the API.

   Cyril: The API problem is solved, it's merged.

   Pierre: I don't understand why there need to be unbounded cues
   in the serialisation.
   … Especially in the case of ISOBMFF wrapping or segmentation.

   Cyril: It's a valid point, I don't fully understand it either.

   Pierre: I'm 99% certain that they want something other than
   what they're asking for.

   Cyril: Think of a cue serializer separate from the packager.
   … Let's say a cue is produced but the end time is unknown, but
   you still want to package and send.
   … One approach is to assign some time.
   … Another is to do it unbounded, and then update it later.
   … I think that's the use case.

   Gary: Yes. I think the key with the proposal is to be able to
   mark a cue as "we don't know what the time is".
   … It may never get an end time, but you should be able to
   specify an end time at a later date.

   Pierre: I agreed with the first statement, not the second.
   … My understanding of how implementations have been designed
   and built is to allow the last cue to have no end time.

   Gary: VTT doesn't care right now - everything requires an end
   time.

   Pierre: Right, but I don't think there's a model that allows
   _any_ cue to be unbounded.
   … Allowing the _last_ cue to be unbounded would be the least
   impact on the WebVTT model.

   Gary: Right, that's the question, why is this needed. Once we
   know that we can work on the solution.

   Pierre: I think you can do it today so I don't think you really
   need it.
   … Going to unbounded is a pandora's box. I'm not a proponent of
   WebVTT but when you go into live subtitling and
   … captioning, people type in real time. Sometimes they
   backspace. If a cue can be updated later, then is it the same
   one, or being replaced?

   Gary: Right now the proposal is only about the end time, but it
   has been brought up that we could allow updating everything.
   … It's worth discussing.

   Cyril: One thing that's important to clarify is if there is a
   use case for more than one unbounded active cue at a time.
   … That would shape the solution.

   Gary: Yes that has also been discussed, how to match cues, or
   only allow one.

   Chris: This is the level of detail I want to get to.

   Cyril: In terms of packaging in MP4, there's the notion of a
   sync sample which can be randomly accessed without knowing
   previous data.
   … If you have unbounded cues then you'd have to duplicate them
   at sync samples and aggregate them, which gets complicated.
   … Frankly I think it should be the job of the serializer to do
   this.

   Pierre: I think you can do it today without changing anything.
   … It might not do what you want semantically, but with richness
   comes complication, like causality, how far back do you have to
   go.
   … It's really complicated.

   Nigel: This is a specific question related to the broader point
   that there is an API that is not fully supported by the syntax,
   and
   … we are wondering what parts of the API need to be opened up
   within the syntax.
   … Also anything that requires statefulness in the receiver is a
   recipe for different clients having different experiences, in a
   bad way.

   Pierre: Yes, one of the advantages of TTML and WebVTT over 608,
   say, is the lack of statefulness.

   Gary: Yes, one of the issues now is that you can't have both
   the proposed new syntax and the fallback syntax in the same
   file,
   … because new clients will show two cues where older ones that
   don't support the new syntax will only show one, which is not
   good.

   Chris: Next steps: we have a monthly meeting for media timed
   events. The next meeting would be Monday 17th May, so I propose
   … we use that as the place to discuss. Same hour as this call
   now.
   … I'm aware that there's another strand around DASH and emsg
   events that is being covered in that activity. I need to be
   careful to allow
   … enough time to cover both. Could be a dedicated separate
   call.

   Cyril: I favour both (but may not attend both).

   Chris: I'm open to suggestion for when.

   Pierre: For the issues related to the syntax of WebVTT I think
   this call is the best one.

   Nigel: I support the wider scope of MEIG gathering
   requirements.
   … Our calls are every 2 weeks so there's a potential slot, say
   on 20th May, in this hour, that might work for people.

   Chris: Happy to do 20th. We should use that meeting to decide a
   frequency.
   … Gary and Cyril, you've both mentioned knowledge of people
   with use cases, so that would be really useful input.
   … Otherwise, aside from the WebVMT use case, I'm less aware of
   who the proponents are.

   Nigel: It's surprisingly low-key in the discussion so far, but
   I think live delivery of captions is a use case, and
   … it may be worth understanding and describing a working model
   for how to deliver live captions in a VTT context.
   … I'm 100% confident we know how to do that in a TTML context,
   but it could be that there's a different model for it in VTT.

  Meeting close

   Nigel: Thanks everyone, we're out of time.
   … Apologies again for the difficulty joining at the start. I
   hope nobody was excluded because of that.
   … [adjourns meeting]


    Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by
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     [16] https://w3c.github.io/scribe2/scribedoc.html

Received on Thursday, 13 May 2021 16:36:20 UTC