[WG: Accessibility] [Using Sakai] captioning support for Lessons builtin player

[Charles Hedrick]

Generally I like to start simple and see what users actually need. So I’ve implemented upload of a single VTT caption file. I assume VTT because that seems to be the only thing supported by all the browsers. I’ve tested on Safari, Chrome and IE. I can’t test on Firefox because it doesn’t support MP4 using HTML5, and this is an HTML5 mechanism. (I don’t have any ogg test files with corresponding vtt files.) The caption option is offered only if the file might potentially use HTML5 video. (The actual technology is chosen depending upon browser capabilities.)

I’m going to check this into trunk today. After some testing it will go into 10.x.

I note that IE uses a different definition of VTT syntax than the others. Our captioning tool produced a file starting

> WEBVTT
> Kind: captions
> Language: en
> 
> 00:00:06.129 --> 00:00:10.309
> 

IE would not recognize it. I had to modify it to

> WEBVTT FILE
> 
> 00:00:06.129 --> 00:00:10.309
> 

(It appears that the ‘FILE” isn’t needed.)


> On Oct 22, 2014, at 11:06 PM, Matt Clare <Matt.Clare at BrockU.CA> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> 	Great news.
> 	
> 	I’d agree that no ones wants an overly complicated interface.  I’d also add that a caption that doesn’t match the original video’s language is an interesting translation feature - not an accessibility support.
> 
> 	WCAG 2 Level AA requires a caption for synchronized media (video), in my interoperation alternate channels like described video and alternate languages are not required - but would obviously be welcome.  I think that this development should certainly provide for a same language caption (so the uploader would be asked to identify the language and the VTT file - or possibly SRT file), and if additional languages and tracks in a method as Shawn suggested (properly ARIA coded) as a nice-to-have.
> 
> 	.\.\att
> 
> On Oct 22, 2014, at 11:11 , Neal Caidin <neal.caidin at apereo.org> wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I'm looping in the Accessibility group on this question. Please see below.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Neal
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Charles Hedrick <hedrick at rutgers.edu> wrote:
>> Currently if you upload a video file to Lessons, it will normally use the HTML5 video tag. At least this is true for current browsers and MP4. If the browser reports that it can’t play the video with HTML5, we’ll try to find some way to play it.
>> 
>> We’re concerned about the accessibility of Sakai. I’m about to add support for captioning files for Lessons. HTML5 allows you to specify multiple files to go along with a video. The file types include caption, subtitle, descriptions, chapter, and metadata. Each one can be in multiple languages. A default can be (for some browsers, must be) defined. I’m concerned about presenting the user with all of these options if in fact (as I suspect) we are going to do well to supply a captioning file in one language. Unnecessary complexity leads to user confusion.
>> 
>> Would folks be OK if Lessons simply allows a single caption file to be associated with a video?
>> 
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> 
> Matt Clare
> Manager, eLearning
>  Centre for Pedagogical Innovation 
> Part-time Instructor
>  Interactive Arts and Sciences
> Brock University, Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada
> http://brocku.ca/pedagogical-innovation    905 688 5550 xt 4539   Office: SBH321
>