Accessible Video in a Diverging Web Environment

1
Accessible Video in a Diverging Web Environment
David Klein K. Fritz Thompson

• CSUN ConferenceTechnology and Persons with
  Disabilities
  
• Los Angeles, CA
• March 16, 2005

2
Overview

• Introduction
• Web-based video players
• The technology
• Creating accessible video
• Flash video
• Our Flash player
• Future of Web-based video

3
Introduction

• Law, Health Policy Disability Center
• Training
• Work Incentive Grantees
• Disability Program Navigators
• Standup training at conferences
• Accessible video of talking heads for further
  training

4
Our Needs

• Provide accessible Web-based training
• High quality video with quality audio
• Closed captions
• Transcripts
• Supporting documents
• Different formats (QuickTime, Windows Media
  Player)
  
• Efficient development and deployment

5
Players

• QuickTime
• Windows Media Player
• Real Player
• Others
• Flash
• Java
• ?

6
Players Shared Advantages

• QuickTime, Windows Media, Real
• Capable of High Quality audio/video
• Free plugin/player (may auto-install/update)
• Streaming or progressive download
• Cross platform availability (with caveats)
• Ability to protect content from download
• Large installed base

7
Players Captioning Capabilities

• QuickTime, Windows Media, Real
• All can handle captioning
• All can use component-based captioning
• Multiple files used
• text-track captioning also available in QT
• All supported by existing captioning tools

8
Players Comparison

• QuickTime Advantages
• Pro version available (30)
• Ability to "scrub" while viewing
• Ability to FF/Rewind (with audio) while viewing
• Ability to have multiple videos playing
  simultaneously
  
• Free multi-platform streaming server software

• QuickTime Disadvantages
• Free player bugs you to upgrade to pro
• Some useful features limited to pro version
• iTunes may be bundled with player (Windows
  version)

9
Players Comparison

• Windows Media Player Advantages
• Feature rich
• Pre-installed (on Windows Platform)
• Easy, automatic upgrades
• Free streaming server software (Windows server
  only)
  
• Windows Media Player Disadvantages
• No ability to scrub
• One movie at a time
• Inconsistent feature implementation

10
Players Comparison

• Real Player Advantages
• Feature rich
• Large content providers vested
• Real Player Disadvantages
• May be difficult to find free download
• Pro version promoted heavily
• Not typically pre-installed
• One movie at a time
• Streaming server costs

11
Flash Player Advantages

• Installed base 98
• Arguably easier to upgrade
• Loads quickly
• New version MX 2004
• Incorporates QuickTime
• Simulates a stream
• Includes Controls component
• Can build in compatibility with other players
• Possible to add features

12
Flash Player Disadvantages

• Not highly accessible, though getting better
• Cost (Flash MX 2004)
• Initial development time
• Expertise required
• Upgrading plugin
• Manually added accessible text to video controls

13
The Technology

• Clients and servers
• Plugins or whatever
• Downloading
• Embedding video in Web pages
• Captioning
• Flash

Understanding how the pieces fit together helps
for producing accessible video
14
Clients vs. Servers
Server
Clients
Clients
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Clients vs. Servers

• Server
• Stores HTML, video, caption text, other files
• Files can be stored on different servers
• Client
• Displays HTML in browser
• Launches players
• Assembles/packages the pieces
• Video
• Caption
• Video Player
• HTML

16
Client View
Browser Window
Embedded Player
Video
Captions
17
The Player / Plug-in

• Embeds the player in the browser
• ActiveX
• Internet Explorer
• Plug-ins
• Netscape
• Firefox
• Opera
• Need to account for both in the HTML
• User must install if not available

18
Web-based Video Delivery

• Download
• Streaming
• Progressive download

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Download

• Provide a link
• Entire movie on client hard drive
• Benefits
• Minimizes low bandwidth
• Multiple views from same download
• Distribute to others
• Disadvantages
• Usability
• Requires hard drive space
• Captioning not always possible
• Distribute to others

20
Streaming

• Server controls content
• Active client-server connection
• Benefits
• Live broadcasts
• Low client hard drive space usage
• Disadvantages
• High bandwidth needed
• Troubleshooting
• May require local network setup (firewalls)

21
Progressive Download

• Play video while downloading
• Benefits
• Maximizes experience bandwidth vs. wait time
• Can be saved and redistributed
• Can be protected from saving by users
• Easiest for users
• Disadvantages
• Uses hard drive space (but temporarily)
• Starts and stops
• Still a problem for captioning when downloaded

22
Accessible Video and Web Pages

• See www.warp.webaim.org
• Standalone players
• Real
• Windows Media Player
• Embedded
• QuickTime
• Flash

23
Embedded Captioned Video
Server
Client
Video File
HTML File
Combining File
Caption File
24
Embedded Players

• Different technologies among browsers
• versus
• Control user experience
• Player size
• Automatic startup
• Surround video with supporting information
• Difficult to implement when players are not up to
  date
  
• Valid HTML?

25
Captioning Technologies

• XML
• Extensible Markup Language
• SMIL
• Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language
• SAMI
• Microsoft Synchronized Accessible Media
  Interchange
  
• QuickTime caption file
• Apple
• Flash
• Macromedia

26
Web-based Video Formats

• QuickTime (.mov)
• Windows Media Video (.wmv)
• Windows video (.avi) as intermediary format
• Flash video (.flv)

27
Caption Files

• Caption text
• Time codes for synchronization with video
• Text Formatting
• Font and font size
• Carriage returns
• Bolding, colors, etc.
• Speakers
• Language support

28
Captioning QuickTime

• Video
• .mov file and others
• Caption file
• .txt
• QuickTime caption file
• SMIL
• .smi or .mov
• Integrates video and caption files

29
Captioning Media Player

• Video
• .wmv
• Caption file
• .smi (XML / SAMI)
• Integration file
• .asx
• Integrates video and caption files

30
Captioning Flash

• Flash code
• .fla
• Video
• .flv
• Caption file
• Whatever (.txt, .xml, .smi)
• XML configuration file
• Flash application (Shockwave)
• .swf compiled from Flash code
• Integrates video and caption files

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Creating a Video

• Shoot (or acquire) video/audio of highest
  possible quality
  
• Acquire secondary audio source and/or CART file
  if possible
  
• Capture, edit and compress video
• 3 output formats .mov, .wmv, and .flv
• Make audio tapes for transcription

32
Transcribing Audio or Video

• High quality audio makes better movies and better
  transcripts
  
• Staff or student workers transcribe using
  in-house guidelines
  
• Includes speaker identification and non-verbal
  elements (Laughter, Applause, Inaudible)
  
• Transcript saved in 3 formats
• MSWord .doc
• accessible .pdf
• plain .txt for caption file
• Proof and correct

33
Pre-Captioning Steps

• Text is broken up into caption-sized chunks
• Special characters eliminated (smart quotes,
  em-dashes, etc.)
  
• Caption timing software (MAGpie or HiCaption
• Both let you transcribe directly or import
  prepared text files
  
• Both attach timecodes to text in realtime
• Both export in plaintext, SAMI, QuickTime SMIL or
  RealPlayer SMIL
  
• Proof and Correct

34
Final QuickTime Assembly

• The movie - moviename.mov
• The caption file -moviename_captions.txt
• Includes captions and timing info
• The SMIL file - moviename_smil.mov
• Combines movie and captions on the fly
• Includes URL pointers to movie caption files
• .mov extension forces QT playback
• Captions display automatically as part of SMIL
  standard
  

35
Final Windows Media Player Assembly

• The movie - moviename.wmv
• The SAMI file - moviename.smi
• Includes captions and timing info
• The ASX file - moviename.asx
• Includes URL pointers to movie caption files
• User must toggle captions in Windows Media Player
  View menu

36
Final Flash Player Assembly

• The Flash playback engine - moviename.swf
• The movie - moviename.flv
• The caption file -moviename_captions.txt
• Includes captions and timing info
• Same file as QT
• The caption control file - captions.xml
• Includes URL pointers to movie caption files
• User must toggle captions in our Flash Video
  Player (CC icon, on by default)

37
Files on the Server(For each movie)

• Transcript in Word .doc
• Transcript in Acrobat .pdf
• Movie in QT .mov
• Movie in Windows Media Player .wmv
• Movie in Flash .flv
• Caption file .txt
• SAMI file .smi
• SMIL file .smi (or .mov)
• Windows integration file .asx
• Flash integration file .xml
• Flash video player engine .swf
• Resizable Flash page .htm

38
Flash Video

• Becoming more accessible by version 6
• More integration with video
• Frustrated with player wars
• Lack of standards compliance
• Continual, relentless upgrades
• Difficulty in upgrading pushing users toward
  paid versions
  
• Hijacking of media types / file extensions

39
Flash Compress Video

• Create .flv file from movie (.mov, .avi)
• Method 1
• Import into Flash library and compress
• Sorenson Spark within Flash
• Export to external file or drag to timeline
• Method 2
• Or compress using non-Flash application
• Sorenson Squeeze

40
Create XML Configuration

• Open configuration file (XML)
• Add settings
• Video location
• Caption file location
• Video size and width in pixels
• Video total time in seconds

41
Combine Files

• Upload
• Video (.flv)
• Caption file
• Caption configuration (caption.xml)
• Flash file (.swf)
• Incorporate embedding tags in HTML

42
Flash Security

• Keep files in same folder
• Use BASE attribute
• om/"
  
• And
• Test thoroughly, especially among browsers and
  browser versions

43
Future

• Our Flash video player development
• Customized controls
• More configuration options in external XML file
• Embedded formatting in captions
• Speech recognition
• Real-time voice recognition
• Automatic time codes (real-time)
• Searchable / Linkable video

44
Resources

• WebAIM
• http//www.webaim.org/techniques/captions/
• World Wide Web Consortium Web Video Standards
• http//www.w3.org/AudioVideo/
• Hi Software (HiCaption)
• http//www.hisoftware.com/hmcc/acc4mcc.html
• National Consortium on Accessible Media (MAGpie)
• http//ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/magpie/
• Captioned Media Program
• http//www.cfv.org
• National Association of the Deaf
• http//www.nad.org/

45
Contact

• Law, Health Policy Disability Center
• http//disability.law.uiowa.edu/
• This presentation
• http//disability.law.uiowa.edu/lhpdc/publications
  /kleinpubs.html
  
• LHPDC Bulletin Board (download Flash playback
  engine)
  
• http//disability2.law.uiowa.edu/ubbthreads/ubbthr
  eads.php?Cat3
  

David Klein 280-1 Boyd Law Bldg. College of Law
University of Iowa Iowa City, IA
52242
319-335-6748 david-klein_at_uiowa.edu
K. Fritz Thompson 280-1 Boyd Law Bldg. College
of Law University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242
319-335-6748
kenneth-d-thompson_at_uiowa.edu