The Nuts & Bolts of Captioning & Describing Online Video
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In this webinar, Owen Edwards, Senior Accessibility Consultant at SSB BART Group and contributor to the Video.js open-source web video player, and Lily Bond, Director of Marketing for 3Play Media, will deconstruct captioning and audio description down to its nuts and bolts. This webinar will explore the legal requirements, benefits, best practices, how-to's and more of captioning and audio description to ensure you can confidently proclaim yourself as an accessibility guru.
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The Nuts & Bolts of Captioning & Describing Online Video
- 1. THE NUTS & BOLTS OF CAPTIONING & DESCRIBING ONLINE VIDEO • Type questions in the window during the presentation • This webinar is being recorded & will be available for replay
- 2. Presented by: Owen Edwards Senior Accessibility Consultant SSB BART Group www.ssbbartgroup.c Lily Bond Director of Marketing 3Play Media lily@3playmedia.co Live tweet: #a11y @3playmed ia
- 3. What will we cover? ▸WHAT are captions & audio description? ▸WHY should you caption & describe? ▸HOW do you create captions & descriptions? ▸WHO captions & describes your files? ▸WHERE do you publish captions & descriptions? ▸Q&A
- 6. CAPTIONS VS. SUBTITLES VS. TRANSCRIPTS Captions assume the viewer can’t hear the audio. Subtitles translate the audio into another language. Transcripts contain text of the audio that isn’t time coded.
- 8. “Narration added to the soundtrack to describe important visual details that cannot be understood from the main soundtrack alone.” – W3C ▸ Also known as video description, narrative description, & description ▸ Similar to “Directors commentary” on DVDs ▸ Increasingly available on TV (via “SAP”), and on some online services “I am here” - RNIB
- 10. Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Section 504: Broad anti-discrimination law Section 508: Electronic & information technology Section 508 Refresh: WCAG 2.0 requirements
- 11. Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) Title II: Public Entities Title III: Places of Public Accommodation NAD vs. Netflix NAD vs. Harvard & MIT
- 12. 21st CENTURY COMMUNICATIONS & VIDEO ACCESSIBILITY ACT CAPTIONS: Online video that previously appeared on TV with captions AD: Prime-time viewing & children’s programming (Goal: 100% AD by 2020)
- 13. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 International guidelines with “success criteria” – Levels A, AA, AAA Level A: Captions & Transcript OR Audio Description Level AA: Captions & Audio Description Level AAA: Captions & Transcript & Audio Description & Sign Language & … A key part of the Section 508 Refresh
- 14. “Excluding businesses that sell services through the Internet from the ADA would run afoul of the purposes of the ADA.” “The United States respectfully submits this Statement of Interest to correct Harvard’s misapplication of the primary jurisdiction doctrine and its misunderstanding of the ADA and - Judge Ponsor, NAD vs. Netflix - DOJ, NAD vs. Harvard &
- 15. BENEFITS OF CAPTIONS Accessibility > 48 million Americans are Deaf or hard of hearing Comprehension > 80% of people who use captions aren’t D/HoH Flexibility > View videos in sound- sensitive environemtns Video Search > 97% of students said interactive transcripts enhanced experience SEO > Adding captions to YouTube led to a 7.3% increase in views Translation > Create multi-lingual subtitles to reach a global audience Reusable > 50% repurposed transcripts as study guides Legal Requirements > 3 major US accessibility laws require captioning
- 16. RESEARCH: HOW & WHY DO STUDENTS USE CLOSED CAPTIONS? www.3playmedia.com/student-research-study/ 98.6%Of students find captions helpful 75%Of students use captions as a learning aid FOCUSIs the #1 reason students use captions for learning
- 17. BENEFITS OF AUDIO DESCRIPTION Accessibility > Estimated 21 million Americans (10%) with vision loss. Autism > Helps to better understand emotional and social cues Flexibility > View videos in eyes- free environments Language Development > Listening is a key step in learning language. Auditory Learners > 20-30% of students retain information best through sound. Legal Requirements > May be required by law
- 19. ONE WAY … Transcribe your video Set timings OR: Edit auto captions Convert format
- 21. ACCURACY RATES
- 24. 1. Include description at the production stage 2. Write a description script & align w/ the timeline. Then record the voice artist & mix the description w/ original audio 3. Create an edited version of a video w/ additional time for audio descriptions HOW DO YOU CREATE AUDIO DESCRIPTION ?
- 25. EXAMPLE OF AUDIO DESCRIPTION Audio description by JJ Hunt www.jjhunt.com (c) copyright 2006, Blender Foundation / Netherlands Media Art Institute www.elephantsdream.org
- 26. No specific standards from WCAG, FCC, CVAA Guidelines exist: especially DCMP’s Description Key Description companies have internal best practices/standards CVAA requirements may lead to lawsuits which ultimately define “good enough” WHAT IS “GOOD ENOUGH” FOR DESCRIPTION ?
- 27. WHERE DO YOU PUBLISH CAPTIONS & DESCRIPTION ?
- 29. Ways to publish captions: • Side car file • Encoded captions • Open captions • Integrations
- 30. WHAT DO CAPTION FORMATS LOOK LIKE? 01:00:00:00 942c 01:00:03:01 9420 9454 5468 e973 2076 e964 e5ef 20f7 e9ec ec80 94f2 97a2 7368 eff7 2079 ef75 2068 eff7 20f4 ef20 6d61 6be5 942c 8080 8080 942f 01:00:04:05 9420 9440 97a2 d9ef 7554 7562 e520 76e9 64e5 ef73 2061 e3e3 e573 73e9 62ec e520 e96e 94e0 97a2 ea75 73f4 20ef 6ee5 20e3 ece9 e36b 2c20 7573 e96e 6720 b3d0 ec61 7980 942c 8080 8080 942f 1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:05,500 This video will show you how to make 3 00:00:05,500 --> 00:00:08,860 YouTube videos accessible in just one click, using 3Play < SCC SRT >
- 31. What players support description: • Few players support a secondary audio track for description • Create two copies: original & w/ AD • Some players support a “text track description,” which is read out by a screen reader (issues
- 32. Other implications of video accessibility: Need to use an accessible video player/platform: • Keyboard-only access to controls • Low-vision support • Screen reader support • Voice control support (e.g. Dragon) • One or more method for AD playback Able player
- 33. Existing accessible video players/platforms: Accessible players exist (but not widely adopted): • Able Player • OzPlayer Increasingly accessible players:* • YouTube • Kaltura • JW Player • Brightcove • Akemi • PayPal’s “accessible video player” • Nomensa’s video player * Not an exhaustive list, nor specific endorsement OzPlayer
- 34. “Access to information and communication technologies is increasingly becoming the gateway civil rights issue for individuals with disabilities.” - Department of Justice
Editor's Notes
- Time-synchronized text that can be read while watching a video Usually the CC icon Originated as FCC mandate for broadcast in the 1980s
- Assume the viewer can't hear; convey sound effects, speaker ID, & other non-speech elements relevance: [keys jangling]
- Terminology: Captions assume the viewer can’t hear the audio; time synchronized & include sound effects Subtitles assume the viewer can’t understand the audio; time synchronized & translate the audio Transcripts include a plain text version of the audio; not time synchronized; sufficient for audio-only
- Time-synchronized text that can be read while watching a video Usually the CC icon Originated as FCC mandate for broadcast in the 1980s
- Many reasons outside of accessibility
- 1973 Section 504: anti-discrimination law that requires equal access for individuals with disabilities. Applies to federal & federally funded programs. Section 508: introduced in 1998 to require federal communications and information technology to be accessible. Apples to federal programs, but often applied to federally funded programs through state & organization laws. Closed captioning requirements are written directly into Section 508, and are often applied to Section 504 Section 508 refresh was released in January, which references WCAG 2.0 guidelines.
- 1990 5 sections Title II: public entities; Title III: public accommodations (extends to private sector) "Places of public accommodation" – what constitutes this? Tested against online businesses Refresh coming? NAD vs Netflix Netflix sued by National Association of the Deaf in 2012 for failing to provide closed captions for most of its "Watch Instantly" movies and television shows streamed on the Internet. First time that Title III of the ADA (place of public accommodation) had been applied to Internet only businesses (before, it had only been applied to physical structures like wheelchair ramps) Court ruled in favor of the National Association of the Deafj. Netflix settlement: Netflix agreed to caption 100% of its streaming content. Profound precedent FedEx was sued for not providing closed captions on training videos Hulu settled with the National Association of the Deaf Amazon settled with the National Association of the Deaf National Association of the Deaf vs. Harvard and MIT Harvard and MIT were sued by the National Association of the Deaf for providing inaccessible video content that was either not captioned or was inaccurately/unintelligibly captioned The first time that accuracy has been considered in legal ramifications for closed captioning (YT auto captions) NAD argued that educational online videos should be constituted as a public accommodation. In June of 2015, the Department of Justice submitted a statement of interest supporting the Plaintiffs' position that Harvard and MIT's free online courses and lectures discriminate against deaf and hard of hearing individuals by failing to provide equal access in the form of captions Still waiting on a decision Outcome will have huge implications for higher education.
- 2010 Previously aired on television Clips – straight lift & montages as of January AD: Phases in between 2010 and 2020 Currently: Top 60 TV markets required to describe 50 hours per quarter. Next phase in is July 1, 2018: Multi channel video distributers must provide 87.5 hours per quarter
- Not U.S. specific, and some countries are ahead in implementing (e.g. Australia, Canada) Technology agnostic, although initially targeting web content. Has been applied to smartphone apps. Level A is the most basic compliance; the DOJ has interpreted ADA as implying Level AA compliance (potentially with some exceptions), and that’s the level that most organizations, companies and educational institutions are standardizing around. Essentially, Level AAA is a list of many potential improvements over Level AA, but it is not realistic to aim for complete Level AAA compliance. The Section 508 refresh brings 508 into sync with Level AA. Note that this is somewhat the wrong way to look at it – while WCAG *requires* “Audio Description”, it specifically states that “if all of the information in the video track is already provided in the audio track, no audio description is necessary”. In other words, some videos are “already self-described” - *additional* audio description is *only* required for those which are *not*.
- Because the laws were written before the proliferation of online video, we must turn to the courts to see what they believe about how the ADA and Section 504 should apply to the online sector: Read quotes
- 1) Accessibility: 48 million Americans growing due to: medical advancements 20% of Americans 2) Better Comprehension: 80% of users Accent, difficult content, background noise, ESL Flexibility to view in noise-sensitive environments (office, library, gym) Autoplay: more and more, companies are playing captions by default with no sound – Social video like Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter w/o captions, these are inaccessible to everyone 3) Video Search: MIT survey - 97% of users found they enhanced experience Used to being able to search and go 4) SEO – Google can't watch a video DDN study > increased views by 7.3% 5) Reusability UW = 50% of students repurposing transcripts Create infographics, white papers, case studies, other docs, course materials 6) Translation > translate English transcript to make video accessible on a global scale 7) Required by Law
- Research study with Oregon State University: how & why do students use captions? Prove how much captions help all students learn 98.6% found captions helpful 75% of students who use captions – not just those who are deaf/hard of hearing - used captions as a learning aid #1 reason for using captions is to help students FOCUS on the video content
- 1) Accessibility: 2015 National Health Interview Survey found that 23.7 million Americans (10%) have trouble seeing. 2) Autism: individuals on the autistic spectrum find that audio description helps better understand emotional and social cues only demonstrated through actions or facial expressions. Answers questions like “what does that smile mean?” 3) Flexibility: view videos in eyes-free environments (cooking, in the car, etc.) 4) Language development: listening is a key step in learning language and associating it with appropriate actions and behaviors. 5) Auditory learners: research into how the brain processes information reveals that there are two channels: auditory and visual. 20-30% of students say they retain information best through sound. 6) Inattentional blindness is the phenomena where you fail to recognize visual information in plain sight. We often have instances where we missed a key visual element in a video or image until it was pointed out to us. Audio description can help point those key visuals out to all viewers. 7) May be required by law.
- DIY Standards Accuracy ASR errors
- DIY method: YouTube. Recommend using it for timings. Transcribe your video – takes 5-6x real time; include non-speech elements Use YouTube to transcribe & set timings Try not to attempt timings manually! There’s a lot of room for sync errors. Or, download YouTube’s auto captions or edit them in the interface If you need a different format, use a caption format converter.
- Important to follow best practices for caption quality. Spelling should be at least 99% accurate; include grammar for readability Speaker identification should be consistent Include relevant sound effects (keys jangling) Use punctuation to improve readability Verbatim: for broadcast, include every “um,” etc because it is scripted. Clean read: for lectures, live presentations, etc., clean read is usually preferable. CHARACTERS: 1-3 lines; 32 characters per line FONT: non-serif SYNC: should be perfect MIN DUR: 1 second PLACEMENT: shouldn’t obscure SILENCE: should note – can drop off the screen.
- We expect continuous improvements Currently: 80% with our current tech Even 95% isn’t sufficient for accurately conveying complex material. Typical sentence of 8 words: 95% accuracy rate means there will be an error every 2.5 sentences. We use our large database of human-corrected, near-perfect transcripts to continually improve our recognition accuracy Word-to-word accuracy issues – multiply the chance of each word in a sentence being incorrect and you’ll see how accuracy issues compound.
- Examples of where ASR fails. A lot of the errors make sense acoustically, but not linguistically. A human wouldn’t make those errors. Issues to look out for: Punctuation Hesitation words aren’t removed Speaker changes not captured No Speaker ID Acoustic errors: - Should be “New England Aquarium” vs “new wing of the Koran” - “forester” vs “four story”
- DIY Standards Accuracy ASR errors
- Note the increasing cost of the three different options See also https://dcmp.org/ai/179/ for a more complete list of Description Service Vendors Note this is not a complete list nor an endorsement Note: Text-based description is supported by some players (e.g. Able Player), but is not widely supported/implemented, and has issues – it is not a viable production solution at this point
- This demo shows a video player with a user-selectable description track Audio description by JJ Hunt (www.jjhunt.com) (Note that this currently links out to a demo site – it may make more sense to pre-record the demo, and embed the recording here)
- Description seems inherently subjective, at least from the editorial perspective (although some argue otherwise) Existing description companies do a very good job – the question is, could there come an equivalent of YouTube auto-captions, and if so what quality is good enough? Without standards development, someone may need to bring a lawsuit for non-compliance as NAD did with Harvard/MIT Possibility for cross-over from the Caption standards? Certainly, we can identify some areas which would not meet quality standards (e.g. talking over dialog, like putting captions over text) Note: Even WCAG acknowledges that there are situations where description is not required, so it continues to be subjective: ... if all of the information in the video track is already provided in the audio track, no audio description is necessary. [Audio description is provided] ... except when the media is a media alternative for text and is clearly labeled as such.
- Important to follow best practices for caption quality. Spelling should be at least 99% accurate; include grammar for readability Speaker identification should be consistent Include relevant sound effects (keys jangling) Use punctuation to improve readability Verbatim: for broadcast, include every “um,” etc because it is scripted. Clean read: for lectures, live presentations, etc., clean read is usually preferable. CHARACTERS: 1-3 lines; 32 characters per line FONT: non-serif SYNC: should be perfect MIN DUR: 1 second PLACEMENT: shouldn’t obscure SILENCE: should note – can drop off the screen.
- Our editors are all US-based and come from all different backgrounds. They go through a rigorous certification process.
- Captions are supported on most devices where you can publish video. One limitation: some social video.
- Originated as a mandate for broadcast TV Now published across all devices and platforms Most players and platforms have caption compatibility; some more advanced User control options on many platforms
- Side Car: like YouTube, where you upload caption file and associate to video Encode: encode caption file onto the video > Use for kiosks or offline video Open Captions: burned in and can't be turned off Integrations make this trivial
- Caption format depends on platform/player. Two common formats here Same exact file; first 3 caption frames. SCC uses hex codes; SRT is much more readable. Consider a caption format converter for something like SCC.
- Note: YouTube player was Flash, and not very accessible. They added HTML5, which was more accessible, but opt-in. As of Jan 2015, HTML5 is default (see http://youtube-eng.blogspot.com/2015/01/youtube-now-defaults-to-html5_27.html)
- Because the laws were written before the proliferation of online video, we must turn to the courts to see what they believe about how the ADA and Section 504 should apply to the online sector: Read quotes