Over the past few years web video has exploded, and the need for accessibility is higher than ever. Unfortunately, there isn’t a standard closed caption format for web video. This article will discuss a few different captioning solutions for the web.
TimedText – Flash Video Players
TimedText is and XML format that is recommended standard by the W3C (warning: very long). This format is used by ActionScript 3 to display captions. I have a tutorial about doing this here. This format allows for meta data; in the example below I have colors indicated for the caption area. ActionScript 3 does read this meta data and uses it when displaying the captions.
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<tt xml:lang=”en” xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/2006/04/ttaf1″ xmlns:tts=”http://www.w3.org/2006/04/ttaf1#styling”>
<head>
<styling>
<style id=”1″ tts:textAlign=”left” tts:fontSize=”15″ tts:backgroundColor=”gray” tts:fontcolor=”white”/>
</styling>
</head>
<body>
<div xml:lang=”en” style=”1″>
<p begin=”00:00:2.00″>-Why vote Hector?</p>
<p begin=”00:00:05.50″>Because Hector doesn’t need a political platform</p>
<p begin=”00:00:09.50″>He just likes to soak up the rays, look cute and</p>
<p begin=”00:00:13.00″ dur=”4s”>make lots of squishy sounds with his cheaks</p>
<p begin=”00:00:20.00″>You see, like that.</p>
<p begin=”00:00:22.00″>Hector, he’s cute, he’s cuddly,</p>
<p begin=”00:00:25.75″>and he makes squishy sounds with his cheaks</p>
<p begin=”00:00:29.00″>- My name is Hector andI approve this message</p>
</div>
</body>
</tt>
SubViewer and SubRip – YouTube
SubViewer and SubRip are the formats used by YouTube and end in a .SBV format. This format is saved as straight text and includes a beginning and ending time for each caption. There is no metadata included, and the line breaks indicate when the caption is done.
00:00:2.00,00:00:05.50
-Why vote Hector?
00:00:05.50,00:00:09.50
Because Hector doesn’t need a political platform
00:00:09.50,00:00:13.00
He just likes to soak up the rays, look cute and
00:00:13.00,00:00:20.00
make lots of squishy sounds with his cheaks
00:00:20.00,00:00:22.00
You see, like that.
00:00:22.00,00:00:25.75
Hector, he’s cute, he’s cuddly,
00:00:25.75,00:00:29.00
and he makes squishy sounds with his cheaks
00:00:29.00,00:00:34.00
- My name is Hector andI approve this message
QText – QuickTime
You can add closed captions to QuickTime videos by adding a Text layer to the video. You have to have QuickTime professional to do this. These captions can be used in iTunes podcasts. To see an example of this, check out this podcast.
[00:00:02.00]
-Why vote Hector?
[00:00:05.50]
Because Hector doesn’t need a political platform
[00:00:09.50]
He just likes to soak up the rays, look cute and
[00:00:13.00]
make lots of squishy sounds with his cheaks
[00:00:20.00]
ou see, like that.
[00:00:22.00]
Hector, he’s cute, he’s cuddly,
[00:00:22.75]
and he makes squishy sounds with his cheaks
[00:00:29.00]
– My name is Hector andI approve this message
This article was published on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 10:30 am. View other posts in the Accessibility category.
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