[whatwg] Note on 4.8.7 (video) and 4.8.8 (audio)

[Ian Hickson]

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009, Michael(tm) Smith wrote:
> Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch>, 2009-09-14 06:52 +0000:
> > 
> > The whole point is that this is _not_ fallback content of that nature. 
> > That's what the note was saying. Linking to that section would be 
> > flat-out wrong. Is there some other way in which I can clarify that 
> > the contents of the element are not "fallback content" as defined by 
> > the spec?
> 
> The note for the video element reads:
> 
>   In particular, this content is not intended to address
>   accessibility concerns. To make video content accessible to the
>   blind, deaf, and those with other physical or cognitive
>   disabilities, authors are expected to provide alternative media
>   streams and/or to embed accessibility aids (such as caption or
>   subtitle tracks) into their media streams.
> 
> What would then be the recommended way to provide fallback content for a 
> video like the following?
>   
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Ara_chloroptera.ogg
> 
> That's a 6-second video of a Red-and-green Macaw moving along a tree 
> branch, with the only sounds being it making a brief vocalization, and 
> some background sounds. It doesn't seem to lend itself either to 
> fallback content provided by alternative media streams or by embedded 
> captions or subtitles.

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009, Jim Jewett wrote:
>
> That paragraph sounds like a reasonable alternative -- another argument 
> for the text/html (or text/plain) source as a final alternative.
> 
> On the other hand, I personally would prefer that sort of caption before 
> deciding whether to watch in the first place, so maybe it could just be 
> handled with an aria-describedby.

Or even just having that paragraph before the video, yeah. I don't really 
see much that could be done to make that video enjoyable to someone who's 
both blind and deaf. It's similar to Rorschach inkblot tests or Pantone 
colour swatches -- there's not much point in trying to convey the 
information any other way, the information is specifically sense-oriented 
and isn't media-independent.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'