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

[Silvia Pfeiffer]

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 7:04 PM, ogg.k.ogg.k at googlemail.com
<ogg.k.ogg.k at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> 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.
>
> This is the one of the cons you accepted when you use an external
> resource rather than an internal one. You might get a broken link too
> (eg, the caption file was taken down by the host, replaced, etc).
>
> I've always considered the 'load a separate srt file' system as a hack
> to sidestep the lack of ability to associate captions to a video. Why
> is it that you never have to choose a separate audio file ? They do
> come with the video, after all.


Yes, an acceptable evil when considering the usefulness of being able
to handle text as text without having to decode it out of a media
file. Text stored in databases, auto-generated, auto-translated,
wiki-style edited or else dynamically handled is much easier to deal
with if it is separate to the video file. Audio and video are much
closer in the type of data that they are than text and av, so it does
make sense to handle them as separate data sources.

BTW: the discussion about in-stream vs out-of-band is one that I don't
really want to have again. Both sides have important and correct
arguments. I don't think the Web can live without either. So, we just
have to deal with the issues created by having different
representations of time-aligned text.

> Note that mplayer, IIRC, has a similar
> sync setting for A/V too.

And so has vlc and I think xine has it, too. This is what I was
referring to when saying that desktop video players have the re-sync
feature.

> If this sync-to-external-resource feature was added, one might want
> to save it somewhere. If you watch a video twice, you'll want the
> player to remember the offset needed for a particular srt/video
> combination (as the offset might well be different depending on the
> language for the captions). Even if saved, it should still be changeable
> (in case the external resource gets edited, and changes base time).

Possibly - but I don't think that's a necessity. This is just for
convenience reasons, while the re-syncing is a feature that cannot be
replaced by anything else bar changing files on a server.


Regards,
Silvia.