Re: [media-and-entertainment] Make a proposal for a task force for gathering AI-sourced future requirements for Timed Text (#122)

# AI-sourced future requirements for Timed Text Task Force (AIRFOT) Proposal

## Context

Timed text formats like TTML and WebVTT support a variety of presentation syntax and semantics, as well as some metadata entities, in some cases in an extensible way. These match current practices for authoring and displaying timed text in use cases such as captions and subtitles, amongst others, where the timed text resources relate to some external media such as audio or video.

As device capabilities have increased so has the scope for more advanced presentation approaches, including complex animations and styling. Advances in software used to process and analyse media files, including “AI” or large language model approaches, are enabling the cost-effective capture of more data. For example, where previously it was feasible to capture sound effects, speech and speaker information, it may now be possible to automate the identification of prosody, intensity and emotion, and to use novel presentation mechanisms to convey those additional dimensions to users.

## Proposal

We propose a task force of the Media and Entertainment Interest Group to discover any new requirements that are not yet well supported by timed text formats, and assess whether any of those require changes to format specifications.

It could be that in some cases existing methods can be used to extend formats with no specification text needed - in that case a note of some kind could be helpful to industry to guide folk on good approaches. An example might be mixing EmotionML metadata into TTML documents.

Similarly there may be adequate specification text already, but some requirements are not met because of lack of adoption.

In other cases there may be standardisation requirements that require normative specification text, for example to provide a consistent mechanism to allow users to vary how much animation they see, for accessibility purposes.

### Accessibility concerns

The use of novel presentation mechanisms can potentially introduce accessibility concerns. Where identified these should be listed.

For example, animation effects can be expressive to some, but problematic to others. Similarly, while the cognitive load of understanding the intensity or emotion of spoken words can be reduced for some users by conveying it visually, for example by using per-word baseline adjustments, the cognitive load of reading might be increased for a different subset of users.

### Scope

The scope of the task force is to discover new requirements and use cases for either or both the expression of timed data or its presentation.

### Participation

The task force is expected to be formed from members of the Media and Entertainment Interest Group and may also be open to participation by other W3C members.

It should seek and include inputs broadly from both members and non-members of W3C, including where possible user group representatives for example of Deaf, hard of hearing or visually impaired users.

### Deliverables

The task force’s deliverable is a report presented back to MEIG describing the findings.

### Timeline

The exercise should be time limited, for example beginning at TPAC 2026 (or just after, e.g. November 2026) and ending within 6 months.

### Effort involvement and activities

The expectation is that the task force should operate in as light-weight a way as possible. For example it may:

* hold a small number of online open forum meetings, potentially including a breakout session during TPAC 2026;
* actively seek input from the public and key interest groups;
* hold a short set of task-force meetings to review any discussion points, wording issues etc.;
* tabulate any new requirements that are identified, and coalesce duplicate requirements;
* log any already-met requirements as signals of ongoing interest and potential adoption challenges ;
* propose actions or work topics back to MEIG for consideration and possible forwarding to other W3C groups;
* describe any obvious accessibility concerns; resolving accessibility trade-offs is out of scope of the task force, but noting them, where identified, would be appropriate.

### Funding

Open forum meetings should be accessible to contributors and participants with accessibility needs. We need to resolve whether W3C can or should fund assistance, such as real time captions or sign interpretation, or, if not, what arrangements can be made.


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Received on Friday, 24 July 2026 16:43:15 UTC