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Re: YouTube Captioned Video

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From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Jan 20, 2011 12:48PM

Hi, Sylvia,

My one comment or concern is around the inclusion of 'descriptive text' instead of the video itself being audio described. Doing it your way does avoid the timing issue - working the description into time available between the audio portions as well as a non-sighted viewer being able to read at his or her own pace, regardless of the length of the video. However, not integrating the description into the video for simultaneous viewing/listening, the descriptions have no context to what Manan Sharma is talking about and if the visuals are related. Posting an audio-described version would simply mean posting two versions - one with and one without, both having the option of closed-captions to be played.

I'm assuming that the transcript if for a person - deaf or hearing - who simply wants to read the content without having to view the view. One idea might be to combine the transcript with the 'descriptive text' - distinguishing one from the other, perhaps, either by using bullets (for the piece of transcript) and indented bullets (for the description) or placing the appropriate piece of description in parentheses within the body of the transcript, or some other formatting strategy. Or, an audio podcast of Mr. Sharma could be posted, with the audio description/descriptive text being added in, by a different speaker. Although, this would work fine for those with no vision whatsoever, it might not be useful for those with limited vision who, with the help of AD, are able to make out some of the visuals with partial sight.

Those are my thoughts,
Gary

Gary M. Morin, Program Analyst
NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer
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-----Original Message-----
From: Janet Sylvia [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2011 8:20 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] YouTube Captioned Video

Greetings,

I would like to ask your opinion of accessible video our organization has uploaded to YouTube.

The video is captioned and there are Text Transcript and Descriptive Text files available with the video.

Could you please share your thoughts about this? Anything to improve? Were you able to access the video and both text files?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_-ZFKTGQfo


Thanks in advance for your help,
Janet


Janet Sylvia
Digital Media Professional
University of Georgia