[Ogg a11y] Fwd: [whatwg] Captions, Subtitles and the Video Element

[Larry Goldberg]

The problems with DTV captions being out of sync, like the problems of DTV lipsync being off, must be corrected by the distributors of the content and the hardware and software developers who control the technologies behind it. One would never put a "speed-up/slow-down" button on a TV remote control so that users are put in the position of fixing producers' errors, nor should that be expected on the web. And deaf people shouldn't have to worry about such.

But I think this conversation is about a minor, less-than-essential feature that will be much lower on the priority list once the real, eventual solutions emerge.

Unfortunately, I also see a divergence emerging between tools and features requested for user-generated content (and captions) vs professionally produced content (and captions) - which of course isn't what anyone who desires accessible web-based video wants. It would be helpful if someone from the world of professional/commercial network/studio-driven content participated in this conversation (they are having their own conversation about all this in the new SMPTE technical working group on Internet captioning). These two streams are not reflecting the other group's needs and concerns.

... Larry ...


________________________________
From: Silvia Pfeiffer <silviapfeiffer1 at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 22:08:51 -0500
To: Geoff Freed <geoff_freed at wgbh.org>
Cc: <accessibility at xiph.org>
Subject: Re: [Ogg a11y] Fwd: [whatwg] Captions, Subtitles and the Video  Element

Hi Geoff,

I think this it is time that Danielle and other burnt users will have
to chip in with their opinions. My proposal was kicked off by her
remark how negatively captions that are not in sync with the video on
TV impact the viewing experience.

Just to chip in my own experience: when I watch videos for which I get
the srt files from the Internet, I am *extremely* happy that my video
player has the functionality of re-synching the subtitles/captions to
the audio and video. It is really annoying when they are off.

This is a functionality that desktop players provide for a reason. So,
I cannot see a difference with having a Web video player provide the
same functionality in a Web browser. There is a need and this
satisfies it.

Of course, with professionally produced content - and in particular
content that is distributed inside a video file - this will not
happen. But for captions/subtitles that are synchronised to the video
by the Web video player, this functionality is really useful.

Regards,
Silvia.



On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 1:33 PM, Geoff Freed <geoff_freed at wgbh.org> wrote:
>
> If I understand this correctly, you're talking about giving the user control over captions (regardless of format) which are out of sync because a producer re-edited a video and didn't bother to re-edit the caption file-- yes?  I don't think you can expect a viewer, especially one who is deaf or hard-of-hearing, to expend energy synchronizing captions to audio.  That's the author's job, not the viewer's.  In a way, it's akin to asking a hearing viewer to resynchronize the audio track after a sloppy edit session.
>
> However, viewers may want to alter the speed of captions for other reasons, such as comprehension or to quickly scan for a particular block of text, so the feature you're describing could be useful for those cases.  But I would never sell this feature as a way to make up for bad production practices.
>
> Geoff Freed
> WGBH/NCAM
>
> ________________________________________
> From: accessibility-bounces at xiph.org [accessibility-bounces at xiph.org] On Behalf Of Silvia Pfeiffer [silviapfeiffer1 at gmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 9:01 PM
> To: Chris Double
> Cc: accessibility at xiph.org
> Subject: Re: [Ogg a11y] Fwd: [whatwg] Captions, Subtitles and the Video         Element
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Chris Double
> <chris.double at double.co.nz> wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Silvia Pfeiffer
>> <silviapfeiffer1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> A mis-synchronisation between the subtitles and the video, as happens
>>> often with srt files.
>>
>> So the data in the srt file is wrong? If not, how does the
>> mis-synchronisation occur?
>
> The data in the srt file is written in relation to probably a
> different version of the same video. So, for example, the beginning is
> cut off. So, yes, the srt file is "wrong", but not wrong enough to be
> unusable.
>
> Cheers,
> Silvia.
> _______________________________________________
> Accessibility mailing list
> Accessibility at xiph.org
> http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/accessibility
>
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