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Re: Accessible podcasts

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From: Kynn Bartlett
Date: Mar 22, 2006 9:40AM

On 3/22/06, John E. Brandt < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Yes, that was the point.
>
> BTW, I define "podcast" and "podcasting" as related to the creation of a
> video element that is intended for viewing on an "iPod" or similar device.
>

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

One could certainly create a video element with and for one of the many
> computer-based media technologies and view it on a nice 17" monitor. And,
> I'm sure reading captioning on a 17" screen is fairly easy to do. But I
> would not use the term "podcast" for that production.
>

Your definition of "podcast" is, as others have pointed out, wholly and
fully incorrect.

Podcasting is in fact a poorly chosen name, but nobody who knows what the
term means would define it as "creating a video element for viewing on an
iPod."

By and large, podcasting is "creating sound files, typically as part of a
regular ongoing series, which are then wrapped in RSS/Atom for download and
play on anything that supports sound files."

Your definition, restricting it to "(i)pods", seems to be one formed out of
lack of knowledge of what podcasting is, and just hearing the (poorly
chosen) term and forming assumptions. As such, whatever definition you
provide for "podcast" is going to be wrong, since you don't know what you're
talking about here.

As far as podcast accessibility, podcasts are (primarily) audio content
("video podcasts" are the exception to the rule) and thus follow all the
normal accessibility rules. They MUST have textual equivalent (transcript)
and SHOULD have synchronized (via SMIL) text and captioning for non-text
audio events. (Video podcasts need more, of course.)

--Kynn