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Re: Captions and transcripts

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Jan 6, 2012 10:12AM

On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 9:11 AM, Kevin White < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Captions are not needed when the synchronized media is, itself, an alternate presentation of information that is also presented via text on the Web page.

Note that this same allowance is provided for transcripts (what WCAG
call "alternative for time-based media") and audio descriptions.

I'm the one that recommended this addition to WCAG 2.0. The point was
that if the main content of the page is identical to the video
content, and both are presented together (particularly when the video
is provided to enhance accessibility of that main content to some
users), requiring captions, a transcript, and/or audio descriptions
would simply be yet another unnecessary duplication of this content
that is already fully accessible. In other words, if the video is an
equivalent alternative to the main content, then these additional
alternatives are not required.

It would be hard to argue that a video is an equivalent alternative to
its own transcript. Instead, the transcript is the alternative to the
video. In other words, you wouldn't have provided the transcript if
you didn't have a video there. In this case, the captions AND the
transcript (or, if you prefer, audio descriptions for Level A and AA
conformance) are required.

Hopefully that makes a bit of sense.

Jared